Love Languages

Offend in my radio program “Lovely Night”, lots of callers asked how do you know if he/she loves me or not? Well, the easiest way to know that is of course “just ask her/him”. However, young people especially women don’t dare to be so direct. Most of the time, my female friend would say “How can I go straight to ask him if he loves me? It would be so embarrassing”. Another male friend of mine experienced a time when he didn’t love her, but he has to say “Yes” because he doesn’t want to embarrass that girl who was directly asked him. He added that I don’t love her but she isn’t bad at all. Then he keeps the relationship moving ahead and hoping that he will love her one day. After a few months, he decided to tell her that he doesn’t love her and that he couldn’t be in this relationship anymore. They broke up. What do you think about that?

Back to a few years ago, I attended a discussion on “Love Languages”. They explained how people express their love to other.

1- Wording person: this is the direct one. Some types of people like to be straight forward. She/he uses sweet words to express their feeling toward their partner.

2- Gift person: this kind of people use gift as a tool of expression their love. Wherever they go, they will never forget to bring something back for the one they love. She/he used observation to buy her/his partner a gift. For example, by accident while walking together in a bookstore, she/he hears her/his partner said that “This book is so beautiful”. The next day, she/he will come back to the store and get that book for her/him.

3- Service provider: this type of person value serving. They like to serve their partner. For example, he/she visit someone’s home together with other friends. There is a beautiful lamp in the corner, and his/her partner say “this lamp is so beautiful. I have one at home but it doesn’t work”. So he/she would response “well would you like me to check it out for you, I may be able to fix it”. This type of person will always be there for him/her to make sure that his/her life is comfortable.

4- Touch person: These types of person like to express their feeling by being close to her/his partner. They like to hold hand while walking, they like to hug or kiss, and like to be around closely. In a country where tradition is concern, there are not many Touch persons.

5- Quality of time: for some people, spending time together is important. These kinds of people like to express their love by being around all the time. They may not able to help a lot, but they make sure that you are not alone and that you can also share with them your sadness. They like to share whatever moment with you no matter when you are happy or sad. And they like to have you with them.

There is a website that you can read it for more detail at www.fivelovelanguages.com , I never check it before, but it should be interesting, I guess.

Youth Camp in Pailin

Every early of the year, I make activity plan. Among those plans in 2009 was to organize a youth camp on "Youth and Social Engagement".

During water festival holiday, I managed to do it as plan.

I, together with my volunteers, brought 50 young people; who were carefully selected by face to face interviewing, to held a youth camp on this issue. This camp has becoming my biggest success of the year. I am so glad I have organized it and I am so thankful to other volunteers who have worked very hard to make it an unforgettable event.

At the camp, we shared, learned, danced, talked, sang, and cried together. We learned about each other's experiences of how we manage our time to serve our society. We shared our experiences on how to make ourselves successful. We created a new dancing band. We sang lots of song. And we cried a lot. You may wonder why do we cried at a youth camp like this ? it suppose to be a happy time. Well, our tears were a happy tear.

At the youth camp, we provided enough time and space for each participant to share their hard time history, their sadness, their family stories, and more. All these were organized because I know that behind all these happy faces, each one of us has a story. Each of us may need hug, need a word "I love you", we all need to cry at some point. After all the sharing, I realize how important is it to talk about our sadness. One of the participants said : "All I want in this is life is to have a Mum and Dad to call". His parents divorced when he was three years old. His dad passed away soon after that, and his mum had another husband and left him with his gradma. One other girl shared another long story and asked: "why my brother could forgive his friend, but not me?". Another poor girl said: "my mum doesn't love me anymore". we shared more stories in a room with light off and candle on. Listen to other's stories and saw how difficult their family relations are, one participants cried and said: "I just know today, how much my parents have devoted for me. I love them and I will be best for them." There are another 100 pages of their stories if I keep writing. After a few hours of honest sharing, we gave each other warm hug and said to each other "I love you".

Sharing is not a discussion. At my youth camp, participants were encouraged to share but not discuss. Everyone has a story, all I want is to let it out. To cry the most we want, to express our pain. So if you do have pain, let is out !

Expectation and Jealousy

Everyone has expectation on whatever they are doing, whoever they are in relation with, wherever they go, and so on. Student expects high score from their exam, manager expects her staff to perform the best, couple expects faithfulness from each other, and more. Expectation inspires each individual to try harder to get what they expect. If they don’t have expectation; what for?

However, is having high expectation a mistake?

Students who expect A+ from their exam, if they get only A- which is already very good compare to others, they will be very upset and feeling very down. Some people said that having this high expectation make you feel very negative about yourself. Other point of view claims that having high expectation is a guarantee of high quality. This question “is having high expectation a mistake?” remained a flexible answer. Expectation motivates people to put a lot of effort. That’s why when their effort doesn’t pay off, they are upset. However, isn’t better than not putting any effort to avoid that you don’t get upset afterward. At least, people who have high expectation give it a try.

Where jealousy does comes from? Does it also created by expectation?

First of all, there is no clear definition of this word “jealousies” or maybe there is but I don’t know. So far I am not a jealous person (I assume). Only when I have very high expectation on boyfriend, I realize that my expectation created jealousy. Logically, the first person who comes shall be the first person to be served, regardless of who you are. If you date a person before I do, you will have him because I date him later than you; however, because I am a girlfriend I expected my boyfriend to be there for me even if I date him later or at least he should had in his mind that his girlfriend needs him. Before he accepts other’s date, I expect him to ask himself “do my girlfriend needs me at this time?” Well, this sounds of course very selfish and unreasonable. Base on this experience, I concluded that my expectation create jealousy. And jealousy is selfish and unreasonable.

Quick advertisement

This is a quick advertisement of my talk show program "LOVELY NIGHT" at Sarika FM 106.5 from Monday to Friday, 09pm - 10pm.

Listen to other people's stories, call in to share your opinion, support them emotionally, and most importantly, learn from them to prepare your future.

Questions for reflection

There are many times that we ask people questions and we expect to get answers. We, human being, like to find out how good or bad others are? Sadly, there are not many times we ask ourselves. Let's take sometime to answer these questions. Enjoy !

1- What am I grateful for today?
2- Is there anything/anybody I have taken for grated in my life?
3- Are there any people I should thank, today?
4- In what way do I think my country need to change?
5- What kind of change do I need for myself, so that I can be part of solution, not problem?
6- What are the main motivations/force of my life?
7- How can I use my energies/talent/skills for others, for my country, and for the world?
8- What promises have I made in the past? How well have I keep them?
9- Have I ever let other down, in what way?
10- Is there any relationship I need to re-build? How? When ?

knowing what you shouldn't know

Have you experience knowing the unconvinced thing that bother you? Sometime wouldn't it be better to not knowing it? I have no idea now which one is better. Please share me some ideas.

You know people are curious, we want to know everything especially about ourselves and people around us. But once we find out something that make us happen, we wish we haven't known it. :( However, our brain is not a computer memory stick that can be deleted whenever we want. So what can I do?

Lessons learn from Taiwan

First of all, let me say a very big thank you to the APYC organizing committee and IofC international for giving the greatest opportunity to a group of ten Cambodian youth to attend this 15th Asia Pacific Youth Conference which is more than just a conference. This is my third time attending APYC. The first one was in Cambodia in 2004; the second one was in the Philippine in 2007. Each APYC has given me a new chapter of a better and freer life. Being chosen to lead other nine Cambodian youth, I was honored to make this trip an experience of a life time. On July the 31st, I departed from Phnom Penh International Airport to Taiwan with lots of expectations and excitement, but also hesitation. I was not sure how well I would be able to lead the team.

Even before the official opening started, friendship already started to build with participants from different countries; some were old friends. While playing games and getting to know each other with lots of smile, I was also thinking that this was how the world should be. “There is no stranger in the world, only friends we haven’t met”

Each day, the session started with a quiet time and sharing that gave me a really good time connecting to my inner voice. Several questions raised up which reminded me that I should have thought about them more often for a better relationship with people around me including family, friends, teams, co-workers and my romantic relationship. Honest discussions within my family group were the greatest foundation of relationship building. I was inspired by so many people just by listening to their honest life story sharing. While focusing so much on my pain that others gave me, I forgot to care about my contribution to those conflicts. I got to realize that “I too was wrong” and I should apologize to those who got hurt by me. In one of my quiet time, my inner voice told me that I too was wrong in breaking up with my ex-boyfriend. At night I wrote him a letter of apology (via e-mail) to ask for his forgiveness.

Listening to other people’s sharing, I have learned that lots of relationship can be fixed if we are willing to change and have the courage to take action. The power of oneself is so strong that it can change the world. “As I am, so is my nation.” I was inspired by the I CARE campaign which was presented by IofC Korea to create “Phnom Penh, I CARE” project in Cambodia. I believe in the four steps of change; (1) Change myself, (2) Engage others, (3) Create answers, and (4) Give hope to humanity. Living in a developing country like Cambodia, many young people lose hope and give up; therefore, actions have to be taken. If not me, who? However, while caring for others and my country, I know that I also have to care for myself. I wrote in the decision making card, “Myself, I Care.” One a month I will take a half day off alone on Saturday morning and this decision will be implemented from August to December this year.
There were many songs that inspire all of us. One of the song was about how war started and the answer “fighting for who is right”. Cambodian and Thai have been fighting for who is right for many decades. We claim that our history is right and therefore their history is wrong. What did we get from that kind of argument, peace or war? People have different perspective, but this should be our search “not for who is right, but what is right” IofC Cambodia has no answer of who is right, but we know that what is right to do is to have a real dialog between the two team. We believe that people will never understand each other if they don’t take time to share what they think. The theme of this APYC is Challenge, Choice, and Change. There are many challenges we are facing to make this exchange program possible such as: history, funding, politic, social perspective, and more but we don’t choose to give up. Gandhi said that “when we are fighting for a good course, people will pop up and support us” Our choice will be: “by the end of this year, the 1st Cambodia-Tai Exchange Program will be held in Cambodia.” We know that this is the right thing to do, and the change we are creating is positive.

Every human being has their own history. Some parts of their histories were enjoyable while some were painful. I too had a painful history but I have been pretending to be strong and hiding my weakness for four years. The last day of APYC, I finally opened it up and to be weak as I should. However, my tears were a new start of being a real and strong me. I was so proud of myself. Others who had painful history were of course not proud of it, but the most important thing is who we really are after those mistakes. All those painful experiences were the greatest lesson which we can never learn from any university.

Being a leader is what my life is for. I love leading people and I thought I was good and strong enough to handle everything on my own. This APYC allow me to look at myself and realize that a step back is needed. There have to be places where people should enjoy my leadership, and there have to be places where I should enjoy other’s leadership. Even if I thought I was a good leader, I realized that I was not a good follower yet. The engine of my soul becomes weaker and if I don’t fix it, it will break.

I was overwhelmed by the warmest care from the organizing committee. I know saying “thanks you” alone is not enough. Many thanks for the financial support from IofC Austria, Taiwan, Julie, and friends of ICA who made our trip possible. From a deepest of my heart, I ensure you that I am and will be using the best of what I have learned from APYC for the benefit of Cambodia and the world.

Phnom Penh, 12th August, 2009