己所不欲，勿施于人，出自《论语》and is something which I have always advocate. Since 1998 when I started being an officer in the Boys' Brigade, I had always strived to follow the OCS's motto "To Lead, To Excel, To Overcome". It was not easy intitially and I didn't even adhere to it. However, these values never left me and in a way, they became part of the reasons why I left the service after serving 10 years as an active officer.
Recent incidents in work and personal life made me did some serious reflections, which brought me back to this issue...
3 years ago, a new overseas colleague joined my company. As I was then in the operations department, he was deemed under my charge and would seek my advices on much stuff. Knowing that he is alone in Singapore and is the type of person who feels lonely easily and needs constant attention, we begin to be close friends and went out occasionally during the weekends. However, as the company expanded and employed more employees, new rules and regulations were set to instill discipline and fairness and at the same time, I was posted to another department. In addition, my part-time degree course started and I had lesser time for friends.
Mr. Colleague is a good worker and over this period of time, he got into a slightly supervisory appointment and begin to leads a team of workers. However, when problem arises, Mr. Colleague would fail to lead by example and would exhibits undesired working attitudes. He would not practise what he preached and yet demanded that others do so. In addition, he assumes things and choose to listen to what he wants to while filtering out the rest. For example, when I had no time for him due to my school projects, he would assume that I would not go out with him anymore as I had new friends in school, in particular, female friends...
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In retrospect, I believe I had failed to stick to my values which I had strived to follow from the beginning. Recent incidents had caused me to make assumptions, which had led to undesirable consequences. Similarly, I had not really been practicing what I had been preaching to others. Comparing myself to Mr. Colleague, its seems to me that we are displaying similiar traits but in seemingly different situations. Like what Mr. Colleague had done to me, I had unwittingly created great stress and anxiety to people around me...