I guess this is the best place I can pour my feelings out after tossing around in bed for the past 2 hours thinking of this matter. Maybe I had a tad too much tea earlier on.
Well, this is a letter to a person that I hope to be able to salvage whatever little friendship we have left after two weeks of OCIP (overseas community involvement programme- which is a programme that requires volunteers to travel to rural and poorer communities in the lesser countries to do service learning).
I don't think this letter will reach your eyes, but I felt that after the heated talk we had on one of the days, I had not brought across the point I wanted to say because there and then, we were both very high on our defence and would just not take in whatever the other is saying. If this letter ever reaches your eyes, I hope it is with a cool and rational head that you are reading this.
The main thing is that I felt that the whole negativity that was churned out during the two weeks was really unnecessary. Has it ever occurred to you that the feelings that you felt were only felt by you, yourself and the people you bitched to? Has it ever occurred to you that the change in team dynamics was only based on you, yourself and the 3 other people whom you bitched to/with? Did you notice that ever since you had that talk with Teddy and the rest of the main comm, some of them actually became nicer towards us?
I don't know if you still stand by the meagre supporting evidence that you quote, for my putting in too little effort in doing service learning. If you were thinking from a third person's point of view, do these evidence not spell L-A-M-E to you?
What I am trying to say is, as a leader, when faced with nagging problems, you should be analysing the problems and addressing it. Not hiding away from it and base your judgement on baseless stories. I am not saying that you cannot judge. We are all humans. There is no one who will not judge. Judging is ok. But concluding a judgement is another issue. Before passing a judgement, as a leader, should you not listen to both sides of the story before concluding on a judgement? Instead of listening to only one side of the story, and basing your views on that, should a leader not face it with a rational mind and assess the story? Or even bother to find out the full story before concluding? If the problem is causing you to feel negative, should you not, as a leader, address the problem instead of ignoring it and allowing the negativity to grow on you? Addressing a problem is not confronting the problem. It does not necessarily need to turn nasty. Why make the whole process unbearable for so many people? Being a leader is not just about giving everyone equal opportunities to do things, or in this case, do service learning. Being a leader also means you are the one who face the shit. When you sense something is wrong, you are the one who solve it quickly and quietly so that it does not affect the rest of the team. You are the mediator. You are the one who is supposed to pick anyone left behind. You are the one who is supposed to encourage everyone to continue on. Running away does not solve anything. It only worsens the situation because you start to involve more people by spreading the negativity and this in turn causes the change in team dynamics.
This leads me to another point. You told me what service learning was and I asked you if you thought that everyone in the team could learn an equal amount. Without thinking, you answered yes. Is this how a leader should react? In fact, is this how anyone should react? What happened was you were trying to defend yourself at that point. Your answer was said without going through proper thought just because you wanted to oppose me. For the sake of standing your ground. Is this what a leader should do? A leader should be willing to take in any criticisms and reflect on them so that one can become a better person and a better leader. Of course you may argue that some comments could be hurtful or rubbish-ly negative. Then it is your job to sieve out constructive comments- which are just called criticisms btw, incase you do not comprehend the english language well enough- and act on them. Hurtful criticisms are hurtful because they strike a hard truth. And it hurts because you don't want to face them.
Back to the point, if you ask yourself truthfully now, is it possible that everyone in the team learns the same amount in this trip, your answer should be a no. If it is a yes, I don't think there is any point in reading on. Learning is subjective. It is not quantifiable. Ask yourself truthfully, did you think that KK learnt as much as Ling did? How do you quantify learning equal amount? Do you think that everything thing that they learnt or took back with them is exactly the same? If you would, ask anyone around you if they believe that two unrelated people can learn exactly the same amount of things after going through the same experience. I can assure you, the answer that they will give you is a 100% no. Except of course if the person was you. Did you know how silly you sounded when you answered yes? Did you really think that your co-chair thought the same way as you did? Did you know how many people laughed when I asked them the question and told them someone actually said yes? Well, I can tell you the answer to the last question. Everyone laughed. Well, I meant everyone I asked during the trip. The team members laughed.
You are probably boiling mad at this point. You might be thinking, who am I to give you advice such as these. Or it could be hurtful comments to you. What I am trying to say is, I am being objective here. I am not trying to shoot you down. Because if that is what I am doing, then I would be saying things like: You are so anal. You cannot be a leader.
You said too, that you only saw improvements after you talked to Teddy. But that is because you assumed that he told me everything right after you talked to him. But did you know when he told me all these things? It was on the morning of the day we talked. Those improvements that you saw was a result of seeing what you want to see. The point is, your judgement had been so clouded that it caused you to feel sore and everything. And it was only after the release (the talk with Teddy), that you started to feel better. For letting everything out. And then you saw what you were searching for. A sign that your talked had changed things. But that also meant that before the talk, you only wanted to see where I had done not enough or where I had done wrong. By clouding your vision to focusing only on the wrong that I had seemingly done, however small and insignificant, you had encouraged the negativity in yourself. I mentioned to you before, how I know of people who disappear when they were told to clean the toilets, of people who interacted less with the kids, of people who use equally little of the native language to communicate with the kids, and of people who did the least work in construction. I also know the people who went out at midnight without telling you during RnR in pairs. But all you could see was what I had done wrong. All you were focusing on was making sure Teddy and I do not leave the group during RnR. You assumed that no one else would do that. Picking the nitty gritty of my actions had enlarged the mistakes I had made. You said that my lack of effort was the most obvious. Not because it really was. But because you had magnified it by focusing so much on it. You choose to believe what you wanted to believe.
I know you might argue that people have different personality and characteristics. It is second nature to you to want to avoid confrontations and nasty things. But as you take on the role of a leader, all these should change. I am not saying that these traits should disappear in one night. I am saying that being a leader exposes you to your fears and it is your job to face them and learn to counter them. If you are afraid of confrontations, then what should you do as a leader if you had to face them? Run away? Keep them all in and turn them into negative feelings, bitch to people around you and make them feel negative as well? You should be thinking that this is an opportunity for you to face this fear and help you improve as a person. Look at it not as a confrontation, but as a rational person handling a case. Addressing and solving a problem. At the end of the day, you know if you had tried your best and the other side does not reciprocate, it is not your fault. You have not failed. Instead of fearing confrontations, you can try to turn confrontations into a more positive form. Do not let people affect or cloud your judgement. You know you are capable of rational judgements. Do not let emotions get the better of you. As a leader, if you find yourself falling into the traps of your emotions, you should know that and prevent it from happening. Always approach matters with a clear cool head. If you cannot do that, seek help from anyone. It could be the co-chair, it could be your best friend in the team. Ask for advice. Ultimately, you and I know we just want to do this project with a happy heart. No one wants to be scarred mentally or emotionally.
If you had been reading faithfully all the way, I really appreciate your patience and thank you so much for taking time off to read this. If by now you are really boiling mad, then I thank you once again for taking time off to read this and good luck with your future endeavours. I only just hope that perhaps one day when you are faced with similar problems, you can think back to this letter and hopefully some of the things I had said can help you tide over the tumultuous time.
If you are feeling hurt but you understand where I am coming from, I hope that you can give me a hint. Call or text or email me. I am not asking for an apology because you are not entirely at fault. I also admit that there are some things that I had done wrong too. I am only asking for the smallest chance that we could be friends again. Because one can never make too many friends. Well, if you do not see the need to be friends, then I just hope that there are no hard feelings after this. Everyone make mistakes. It is just whether you have the courage to admit to them and change to become better.
Regards,
Me
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