Five Whiteboard Philosophies that Confused Me

The White Board

There is a White Board at the entrance to my work area. Some of my work colleagues scrawl down interesting quotations, Bible verses and philosophies on it. It's always interesting to enter my workplace and stare at the board for a few second.... sometimes minutes. We also use this board for some teaching at the workplace and for reminders.

What is written on most occasions makes you think positively and adds a lovely touch to the day. It's nice to discuss these little nuggets of wisdom. However once in a while someone puts something on the whiteboard that confuses us. Even after scratching our heads for a while, it seems impossible to figure out what on earth it was meant to convey. Sometimes I frankly disagree with the philosophy.

Here are 5 such brain bending philosophies that can be termed controversial, superfluous or confusing. You decide!

A Palace Construction

"Never worry about the delay of your success compared to others, because construction of a palace takes more time than an ordinary building."

This seems to be an anonymous quote but doesn't really reflect a positive message. It almost seems to encourage putting in very little effort into a task which is a sure shot way of delaying success. Delayed success often reflects a poor attitude or method to achieve this success.

I guess the quote meant that if you work hard and still don't get success it means that the fruit of your hard work will be much more. A difficult task will need harder work and definitely may take longer - and the joy of success will certainly be great. I'm not sure how far this is true. 'Delay' usually signifies an underlying problem or deficiency. There may be a better way to actually make this quote - maybe a different choice of words?

Broken Trust and Melted Chocolate

"Broken trust is like a melted chocolate, no matter how you tried to freeze it, it will never return to its original shape"

The purpose of chocolate is not to retain its shape. Infact, the best pleasure is experienced as it melts and changes shape inside our mouth. Melting chocolate in room temperature never destroys it. Only chocolates that have fillings or textures are a little messed up when they melt. They still taste good though! To be honest, I feel chocolate is hard to destroy. Whatever you do to it, you can still eat it.

Broken trust is irreparable and the relationship will never be close to what it was like before. Comparing this to melted chocolate is quite poor taste literally. I'd rather compare it to broken glass that you have tried to superglue together. It looks bad, cannot function and will probably break again.

Maybe I should become the philosopher.

"Life is like the ocean. Waves will try to knock you down and push you back to where you started but once you fight through them, the entire ocean is yours"

The first sentence has so much potential, the second starts off with much promise and the rest just collapses in a heap.

Why? Who the heck would want to own the ocean, stand surrounded by water. I guess maritime fans will be excited for a short while before the load of salty water gets a little boring. The lovely aquatic life probably can hold your attention for a few hours if you have the right gear. And after that? You can't even post this major achievement on Facebook as it is unlikely you have internet in the middle of the ocean .

And to top it all a person like me will probably be puking all over due to sea sickness. To me, it's not worth it. I'd rather play on the oceans edge at the beach with the waves crashing into my feet while I jump around.

Own the entire ocean? Nah..... I'll pass.

Reversing Rivers

"RIVERS" Never Go "REVERSE". So try to live like a RIVER. Forget your past, focus on your FUTURE... Be positive.

Factually speaking, some rivers have reversed their direction in history. But let's ignore that to start off.

The thing is, rivers carry so much of stuff down till they drain into an ocean. They literally carry their 'past' with them till the end. The flow of water is unidirectional. But the river is marked as a river throughout its course which is usually constant. Once the water crosses a point people don't say that this point is not part of the river anymore.

While the flow of a river certainly tells us lots about having direction and persisting in life, I'm not sure the above philosophy is very rivery. I can think of many things a river can teach me. This reversing psychology doesn't appeal to me through.

Get a Factory

Build 3 factories in your life, 4th one you will get automatically

1.Ice factory in brain. Be cool.

2.Sugar factory in tongue. Be sweet.

3.Love factory in heart. Be calm.

Philosophically, this has some cool / sweet / calm stuff. It's just that it's cringeworthy! It's almost like someone forced themself to write it and completed it for completions sake. The person probably had random thoughts, a key word and heaved a sigh of relief when the quote was finally done. So you can read it, memorise it, smile and move on with your satisfied life. Or maybe a satisfactory life.

Is Your Brain Fuzzy?

So how does it feel at the end of that philosophical blitz? Which of these options best describes you after you've read this article?

And the Whiteboard Goes On....

So that's it for now. The whiteboard at work goes on. Each day there's excitement as I enter the workplace. I'll continue with more philosophies I have learnt. Look out for more in this series - some short ones, some beautiful ones, some poetic ones, some biblical ones. Are you ready for it?