Daily Wisdom Notes

The Question Hidden Inside the Challenge A reader recently asked me, “Mr. Sinin, you have written many articles. Have you personally practiced every point you have shared and succeeded in all of them?” I smiled and answered with a question of my own. If I had already mastered every lesson I write about, would my life, livelihood, and position still be exactly as they are today? He replied immediately that they probably would not. Then he used a familiar Cambodian expression and asked whether I was like “a toad selling medicine for ringworm”—someone offering a cure that has not cured him. His question was sharp, but it was worth taking seriously. It raised a problem faced by writers, teachers, parents, advisers, and anyone who shares a lesson with another person: Must we completely embody a truth before we are allowed to speak about it? I do not believe complete mastery is required. But honesty is. A person can offer a useful understanding while still struggling to live it. The responsi...

The Passion That Remains When Circumstances Change Many years ago, a young woman asked me a question that stayed with me. She had heard me say that writing educational and reflective articles was my greatest passion in this life. “Are you certain?” she asked. “How do you know this is your true passion? How did you discover it?” I answered her final question first because I believed it would answer all the others. When I am happy, I think about writing. When I am unhappy, I still think about writing. When I have money, I want to write, and when money is scarce, I want to write. When I have work, writing remains in my mind. When I have lost work, it remains there too. After a satisfying meal, I want to sit down and write. Even when life feels less comfortable, the desire does not disappear. Praise makes me want to write, but criticism can also send me back to the page. I want to write when I feel hopeful, and I still want to write when hope is difficult to find. In almost every condition...

Tomorrow will become today. Today will become yesterday. And yesterday, once it has passed, will never appear again in exactly the same form. This is why I try to use each day as well as I can. But what does it really mean to use a day well? For me, the answer is not simply to stay busy. Every day contains two kinds of work. The first is the work I must do to support myself and my family. It pays for food, shelter, and the ordinary needs that allow life to continue. The second kind is the work I feel drawn to do: finding a little time to sit down and write one thoughtful article. This work may occupy only a small part of my day, but it gives something back to me that cannot be measured by hours alone. The challenge is that necessary work can easily consume the whole day. If we do not deliberately make room for the work that expresses who we are, it may remain undone for years. How, then, can we honor our responsibilities without abandoning the part of us that also needs to live? Two Ki...

A Journey Through the Hottest Hours Recently, an urgent responsibility required me to travel about 80 kilometres by motorbike, including the return journey. I had to ride between eleven in the morning and two in the afternoon, during some of the hottest hours of the day. The heat came from every direction. The sun pressed down from above. The wind against my body did not feel refreshing; it felt like hot air rising from boiling water. Heat also rose from the paved road below me. I drank three bottles of water, yet I still felt thirsty. As I continued riding, physical discomfort began to produce another kind of heat inside me. I could feel irritation rising. Then a quiet awareness interrupted it: The weather is already burning outside. If I also create anger inside, how will I carry both? That question did not cool the road. It did, however, show me that I was facing two conditions at once: the heat itself and my mind’s resistance to it. I could not immediately change the first, but I m...

The Horn Behind Me A few days ago, I was riding along Norodom Boulevard near the Independence Monument. As I approached an intersection, the traffic light changed from green to yellow. I slowed down and stopped at the front of the line while other vehicles gathered behind me. When the light turned green, a driver behind me immediately sounded the horn. The sharp noise startled me. There had hardly been enough time for me to move. Ten years ago, I might have turned around, shouted something angry, and then ridden away. I would have thought, “How rude. Why can this person not wait for even one second?” The horn would have become more than a sound. It would have felt like a personal insult. This time, I simply started my motorbike and continued. Yet I did have a reaction. My first thought was, “Maybe the driver has something urgent to reach. May this person arrive safely and on time.” That response surprised me more than the horn did. The situation was ordinary, but it showed me how much ...

A Request at the Coffee Table This morning, I returned to an old coffee shop that I had not visited for quite some time. I recognized several familiar faces. We drank coffee, asked about one another’s lives, and enjoyed the warmth of meeting again. Because it was Saturday, many people eventually left to have lunch with their families. Only four of us remained. A man I had seen once or twice before approached the person sitting beside me and asked for money. My companion said he had only enough for his own coffee. The man looked disappointed. Another person at our table took out 10,000 riel, about US$2.50, and gave it to him. The man also looked toward me, but I did not give anything. I did not understand why he needed the money, and before I could learn more, he walked away. Afterward, the others told me what they knew. They said he was a retired civil servant with a reasonable pension, but that he frequently asked people for money and did not pay for his coffee. They had also heard th...

Nearly ten years ago, I was a manager in a company. One employee was in danger of losing his job because of a problem at work. He was not a member of my team. He reported to another manager whose position was similar to mine. The employee came to me and explained what had happened. I listened, but I did not want to decide the matter from his account alone. I looked further into the situation and tried to understand the facts. What I found was that he had made a mistake, but it did not seem serious enough to justify dismissal. His years of service also deserved consideration. I spoke privately with his manager. My purpose was not to interfere with another person’s authority. I wanted to make sure that a serious decision was not being made from incomplete information. After hearing what I had learned, the manager agreed to give the employee another chance, on the condition that the same problem would not happen again. The employee was deeply relieved. He was a husband and a father. Losin...