Many complain of their looks, but none of their brains

At work, we have this thing called Performance Feedback or PF. In other companies it is more commonly known as KPI reviews or assessments or even appraisals (although that term is misleading as it contains anything BUT praises most of the time).

The purpose of having PFs is for your upper level co-workers to evaluate you, not only on how you perform at work, but also on how you interact with you team members and on anything else that you may have contributed to the firm.


The intention is noble. It is to help you to be aware of how you've been performing, to tell you what are your areas or strength and to inform you of any areas that may need improvements so that you can be a better employee and subsequently contribute more to you firm's performance. While the intention is noble, the system is far from being incorruptible and is not as perfect as we may want it to be.

So basically it tells you what do your superiors think about you at work.

But how about what you think of yourself? Not only at work but also in life? Surely you can apply the same principles for you to evaluate yourself on your own.

Self reflection is a way to keep your life in check. As a Muslim, no matter whatever terms that people may use, they also come back to two basic infallible control system: 1) Self reflection (muhasabah) 2) Remembering death.

Remembering death is the simplest way to keep yourself from going astray. Al-Ghazali, a Muslim scholar once said that death is the nearest thing to us as it may happen anytime between now and the next moment. So remembering death is the best way to prevent yourself from doing anything wrong and sinful since you may not have the time to repent yourself, thus you better not do it.

Self reflection is another way. Every night, when you're on your bed, before drifting off to sleep, just think about the things that you've done during the day. Did you do something for yourself? Did you contribute anything to other people? Was there anything that you shouldn't have done? Was there anything that you should have done differently? How did you interact with you friends? Did you hurt anyone? Did you made anyone smile? Those are some of the questions you can ask yourself, until you fall asleep. It helps you to think about yourself, your life and how to improve it. What's more, the luckiest man is he whose today is better than his yesterday and whose tomorrow is better than today.

I do both of them. I remember death a lot. Sometime I think I've over done it that it somehow manage to creep into my dreams. Trust me, dreaming of yourself on your deathbed is no laughing matter, especially when you see your loved ones crying around you.

I do self review almost every night. Not only as one of my duty being a Muslim, but it also helps me to fall asleep. On certain days, something may happen that I will need a longer time to think about what happened. Sometimes, I also decide to write it down. I have a note book that I hide somewhere. And I also have this blog. So that's why sometimes you may think that my writings are somewhat incomprehensible or to a certain extent, emotional. I do excuse for that. I do get emotional outbursts sometimes. But in no way they are to be interpreted as complains. I would never complain about life. It's like complaining about God's plan for me. But I do give feedback on myself, and what I have done to my life. I am in no position to give feedback to God.

Furthermore, when your boss puts something in that box called 'Areas for improvements' in your feedback, isn't that an equivalent of him complaining about you? So I am not complaining, I'm merely giving feedback to myself as there a lot of areas for improvements in my life.

Plus, I can't help it if I do complain. That's what 4 years of French education does to you.