One of my frustrations about our education system is the fact that no one told us how difficult it is to be ourselves, even when we are encouraged to be ourselves every single fucking time. Or to put it differently, to be the person that we actually like. Perhaps the means are not available, for whatever reason, but I personally believe for a lot of people, myself included, the issue is finding out who (and what ) you actually like to be (doing).
As we grow older (and hopefully become mature yadidadida), life happens in a way that gets in the way. Life gets in the way in the form of rent to pay mostly, and then there is this thing called... pride about getting the job. In my cohort, it was getting a Big-4 job (banks and/or accounting firms). I did neither, I completed a doctorate instead. Best decision of my life? Naturally.
I get to write
the prestigious two letters in front of my name for the rest of my
life. Yes, I am a doctor. I kind of like being one.
And it helped me worked out what I wanted to do afterwards.
To summarise: I completed the project (that was my thesis) about 6 months early because I just couldn't wait to get the fuck out of there. My supervisors were (and still are) incredibly talented and lovely academics (well, most of them anyway), and the support they've given over the years was literally one of the things that kept me going. But I was bored to tears with the whole program. I wanted out, stat. Quitting was never an option (this is what happened when you grow up with a dad like mine). So I had to focus on getting it done, stat. I discovered that when I put my mind into something, I end up achieving my goals.
More importantly, I learned that I can own it, you know as in, own the fuck out of it. I learned that when I don't like something, I have to change it. I accepted that change is the only constant in my life and so I learned to be friends with it. I learned that to be friends with change, I have to interact with it. I embraced it, just like any other friends I have, and incorporated it into my life. I started making time for it, basically. And for some reason, it decided to respond to my friendship and my life has never been the same ever since.
This is quite a breakthrough for me because in this life, I was so accustomed to conforming. I insisted on being different ... just because. I lacked the courage to pursue the things that I actually like (and be the person I am comfortable with) because I have this fear of missing out. What if I miss out on that life while I am busy pursuing this life? What if that life ends up being better than this life? But if what I truly want is this life, then why do I still consider that life as an option? Why can't I just be comfortable with the fact that what I want is actually this life, especially when it seems like no one else wants it.
A lot of things in my life did not go according to
plan after graduation. I would be lying to you if I told you that
everything was a bed of roses and all the hu-ha, oh please: the GFC happened. I realised
that everything in this life happens for a reason or three, and those
reasons are usually fucking good, even when you aren't necessarily aware
of it at the time.
I still get a plethora of people saying that it's such a waste that I am not in academia on a full-time basis because that's what doctors do. Well guess what, there are some doctors out there, like yours truly, who are not in academia and do not believe that it's such a waste.
Simply put, this is what I want for my life. I own this. If you don't like this fact, something is wrong with you. I am just being honest with myself, who I am and what I want in my life. This is my recipe for a comfortable life: I devote myself into working out the things I want to do and spend a chuck of my time doing them. Or to put it differently, I am not comfortable spending my efforts to conform to society's standard of being just like anyone else. I am not about that life.
Ok.
It is difficult to stay true to yourself. To be able to do this, you have to do this for the rest of your life. You have to remind yourself why you are doing this. For reasons that are intimate to you and most likely private to you, you are responsible for keeping your dreams alive. If to be able to do this means you have to be deaf to certain people, then be deaf to certain people.
Nobody is forcing you to live your life this way. But this is your life; and because this is your life, you live it at your best.
You only have one life.
No pressure.
Thursday 26 September 2013
Tuesday 24 September 2013
A case for dating
I have always admired people who marry their first girlfriend/boyfriend. I am not sure whether this is because (a) they are lucky to have found "the one" on their first go or (b) they have an incredible sense of commitment. In my opinion, the number of people who marry their firsts is declining, or maybe this is a function of the people that I know.
I am not exactly surprised. Because I certainly do not want to marry my first boyfriend (and I am not sorry, thankyouverymuch) for reasons that I do not wish to disclose right now (maybe someday). I view this whole "dating" thing as a journey of discovery of many many things that I otherwise would not have found out.
I mean, look at it this way. I was raised in a family whereby dating was (is?) discouraged. My mum put it as "the more guys you date, the more your value declines", as if my worth as a person can be measured by the number of people that I am not with. In her view, the best way to get married is to marry the first person you date. In order to do this, you must not date people that you don't want to marry. There is a certain kind of madness to her approach, and I admit that it is not without its merits (and yes, judging by the double negatives that I just wrote, I had convinced myself of the merits instead of actually believing it in the first place).
The negative correlation of the guys you date and your worth as a person, whether imagined by my mother, or deemed as real by society (or imagined by my mother as deemed real by society), is to a certain degree reflected by the negative connotations of a woman who is promiscuous. The difference is that in my mother's case, you do not have to sleep with those guys to experience personal value reduction; it automatically happens as you date the guys in question. Sometimes, depending on her mood, she even classifies guys who are close to you into this category. Yes, that's right, you don't even have to date, you only need to be friends and whoops - you are suddenly "less" of a person.
The ultimate merit to this approach (that I can think of) is that it prevents you from repeated heartbreaks. If you have not experienced a heartbreak in this life time, you can count yourself lucky. The rest of us, mere mortals, well, we've had at least one, and it was nasty, and it took all of the ounce of strength in our bodies to recover and "mend" this broken heart. And for a while, we exist in this vacuum whereby we do not think we can ever love again. Yes, all of these sounds really dramatic, but it is also true. It felt like life was not worth living, at least momentarily. And to be spared of this pain, yes, okay, I will completely and totally sign up for it, not withstanding the invention of the break up pill.
But of course deep down I believe that experience has its own value and this is why the workforce places a premium on experience (that is, more experienced workers are paid more than their relatively inexperienced counterparts). Perhaps personal experience is not exactly something that you can put a dollar value on; however, it does not negate its value. If anything, it is even more valuable because it can't be bought by money. You can only acquire such experience (and grow from it) by experiencing it yourself. Experiencing pain is how we grow, and hopefully we grow to be better versions of ourselves (some of us don't). Protecting children from pain is the instinct that every parent in this planet has (well, almost all). I try to remind myself that if ever one day I am blessed enough to have children, then I need to make sure that I treat them like the person they are, because that's what they really are. And I may as well be saying all of this because I do not have kids yet, but the one thing that resonates with me is Khalil Gibran's poem titled Children whereby he stated: your children are not your children.
Don't get me wrong, this is not a license to go around and break people's hearts. That is so terrible. Whilst deep down I do not believe that such people exist, I have witnessed quite a few experiences whereby it is actually true. If you've never come across such people, count yourself lucky. Because there are people like that, for whatever reason, and they all sleep like a baby at night. As to how they manage to do this, that remains a mystery to me.
My preference is to date as many people as possible before you get married, if only to get to know yourself and what is it that you want from a life partner. According to my mother this would devalue you as a person, according to me, this is just a part of finding out who you are and what you want, if you do not know it already. Or maybe, it can be as simple as this: you think you know what you want, but you have not experienced this part of life that you may end up liking. I mean, really, there is no harm in experimenting, insofar as the experiment is done within reason, no?
I've dated quite a few people, which means, I have quite a few people with the label exes. Somewhat rather fortunately, most of these people I am not exactly in touch with. That's another thing, by the way, I do not believe in being friends with your exes, but that's another blog entry, another time.
I admit, there was a time in my life whereby I seemed to be attracting the wrong kinds of men.
Y’all know how it panned out: bad boy met girl, dated, broke up, bad boy went into a downward spiral of self-destruction, girl was seemingly oblivious blab la bla.
Occasionally, I received unexpected updates from random strangers about how my exes were travelling along. I was told that one of them in particular was not doing well.
They say “Never explain yourself; your friends don’t need it and your enemies never buy it.” I am about to break this rule.
Do I feel a little bit guilty for the fact that some of them are still not over me? To the extent that I contributed to the issue, i.e. I fell in love with them, sure, I take responsibility for that. I don’t think I forced them to love me, and I don’t want to apologise for being loveable. As such, sure, ok, I take responsibility to the extent of my role in that brief stint that we had together (yes, brief stint, because the maximum length of my failed relationships is 24 months. When you take into account that we have all lived for more than 20 years, 24 months is definitely not significant at all.).
Do I want to help them? If I can turn back time, sure. But last I check, I am not god yet, and I don’t have a time machine. So despite my desires to help in some helpful way, I don’t believe I have the capacity to do so. I don’t believe that meeting them and talking to them would yield any benefit whatsoever. I don’t believe explaining why we can’t be together would be beneficial at all. I think all of these are a waste of my time.
Whenever I get ex-related updates that are to the extent that they are not doing well, I gotta say I am not amused. My standard response is always the silent reply in my head, no wonder we broke up; you are incapable of taking responsibility for yourself, let alone a family unit. Yes, I just said that. That’s the whole point of a relationship: to create a family together eventually.
Dude, seriously. This is your life and the least you can do is to be responsible for the things you can control. Other people may and will hurt you. It’s up to you to respond to that, hopefully in a way that’s somewhat along the path of maturity.
[I debated long and hard before publishing this piece, for a variety of reasons. First, this is not a how-to on dating. This is also, to a certain degree, inappropriately labelled as "a case for dating", it is more like a one person's opinion on why dating a few people before settling down is encouraged (but that's too long for a title). There are also some ex-es that I am actually friends with, despite my earlier views on not believing on being friends with exes. So in other words, this is one heck of a controversial entry. In the end, I hit the publish button because well, I quite like it. And things like this are meant to be shared with the whole world, yes?]
[In the interest of full disclosure, yours truly is currently attached, i.e not single.]
I am not exactly surprised. Because I certainly do not want to marry my first boyfriend (and I am not sorry, thankyouverymuch) for reasons that I do not wish to disclose right now (maybe someday). I view this whole "dating" thing as a journey of discovery of many many things that I otherwise would not have found out.
I mean, look at it this way. I was raised in a family whereby dating was (is?) discouraged. My mum put it as "the more guys you date, the more your value declines", as if my worth as a person can be measured by the number of people that I am not with. In her view, the best way to get married is to marry the first person you date. In order to do this, you must not date people that you don't want to marry. There is a certain kind of madness to her approach, and I admit that it is not without its merits (and yes, judging by the double negatives that I just wrote, I had convinced myself of the merits instead of actually believing it in the first place).
The negative correlation of the guys you date and your worth as a person, whether imagined by my mother, or deemed as real by society (or imagined by my mother as deemed real by society), is to a certain degree reflected by the negative connotations of a woman who is promiscuous. The difference is that in my mother's case, you do not have to sleep with those guys to experience personal value reduction; it automatically happens as you date the guys in question. Sometimes, depending on her mood, she even classifies guys who are close to you into this category. Yes, that's right, you don't even have to date, you only need to be friends and whoops - you are suddenly "less" of a person.
The ultimate merit to this approach (that I can think of) is that it prevents you from repeated heartbreaks. If you have not experienced a heartbreak in this life time, you can count yourself lucky. The rest of us, mere mortals, well, we've had at least one, and it was nasty, and it took all of the ounce of strength in our bodies to recover and "mend" this broken heart. And for a while, we exist in this vacuum whereby we do not think we can ever love again. Yes, all of these sounds really dramatic, but it is also true. It felt like life was not worth living, at least momentarily. And to be spared of this pain, yes, okay, I will completely and totally sign up for it, not withstanding the invention of the break up pill.
But of course deep down I believe that experience has its own value and this is why the workforce places a premium on experience (that is, more experienced workers are paid more than their relatively inexperienced counterparts). Perhaps personal experience is not exactly something that you can put a dollar value on; however, it does not negate its value. If anything, it is even more valuable because it can't be bought by money. You can only acquire such experience (and grow from it) by experiencing it yourself. Experiencing pain is how we grow, and hopefully we grow to be better versions of ourselves (some of us don't). Protecting children from pain is the instinct that every parent in this planet has (well, almost all). I try to remind myself that if ever one day I am blessed enough to have children, then I need to make sure that I treat them like the person they are, because that's what they really are. And I may as well be saying all of this because I do not have kids yet, but the one thing that resonates with me is Khalil Gibran's poem titled Children whereby he stated: your children are not your children.
Don't get me wrong, this is not a license to go around and break people's hearts. That is so terrible. Whilst deep down I do not believe that such people exist, I have witnessed quite a few experiences whereby it is actually true. If you've never come across such people, count yourself lucky. Because there are people like that, for whatever reason, and they all sleep like a baby at night. As to how they manage to do this, that remains a mystery to me.
My preference is to date as many people as possible before you get married, if only to get to know yourself and what is it that you want from a life partner. According to my mother this would devalue you as a person, according to me, this is just a part of finding out who you are and what you want, if you do not know it already. Or maybe, it can be as simple as this: you think you know what you want, but you have not experienced this part of life that you may end up liking. I mean, really, there is no harm in experimenting, insofar as the experiment is done within reason, no?
I've dated quite a few people, which means, I have quite a few people with the label exes. Somewhat rather fortunately, most of these people I am not exactly in touch with. That's another thing, by the way, I do not believe in being friends with your exes
I admit, there was a time in my life whereby I seemed to be attracting the wrong kinds of men.
Y’all know how it panned out: bad boy met girl, dated, broke up, bad boy went into a downward spiral of self-destruction, girl was seemingly oblivious blab la bla.
Occasionally, I received unexpected updates from random strangers about how my exes were travelling along. I was told that one of them in particular was not doing well.
They say “Never explain yourself; your friends don’t need it and your enemies never buy it.” I am about to break this rule.
Do I feel a little bit guilty for the fact that some of them are still not over me? To the extent that I contributed to the issue, i.e. I fell in love with them, sure, I take responsibility for that. I don’t think I forced them to love me, and I don’t want to apologise for being loveable. As such, sure, ok, I take responsibility to the extent of my role in that brief stint that we had together (yes, brief stint, because the maximum length of my failed relationships is 24 months. When you take into account that we have all lived for more than 20 years, 24 months is definitely not significant at all.).
Do I want to help them? If I can turn back time, sure. But last I check, I am not god yet, and I don’t have a time machine. So despite my desires to help in some helpful way, I don’t believe I have the capacity to do so. I don’t believe that meeting them and talking to them would yield any benefit whatsoever. I don’t believe explaining why we can’t be together would be beneficial at all. I think all of these are a waste of my time.
Whenever I get ex-related updates that are to the extent that they are not doing well, I gotta say I am not amused. My standard response is always the silent reply in my head, no wonder we broke up; you are incapable of taking responsibility for yourself, let alone a family unit. Yes, I just said that. That’s the whole point of a relationship: to create a family together eventually.
Dude, seriously. This is your life and the least you can do is to be responsible for the things you can control. Other people may and will hurt you. It’s up to you to respond to that, hopefully in a way that’s somewhat along the path of maturity.
[I debated long and hard before publishing this piece, for a variety of reasons. First, this is not a how-to on dating. This is also, to a certain degree, inappropriately labelled as "a case for dating", it is more like a one person's opinion on why dating a few people before settling down is encouraged (but that's too long for a title). There are also some ex-es that I am actually friends with, despite my earlier views on not believing on being friends with exes. So in other words, this is one heck of a controversial entry. In the end, I hit the publish button because well, I quite like it. And things like this are meant to be shared with the whole world, yes?]
[In the interest of full disclosure, yours truly is currently attached, i.e not single.]
Tuesday 17 September 2013
On friendship
Time and time again, I come across people that I bump into regularly enough for a period of time, before that person, for one reason or another, needs to leave and in doing so, eliminates the chance of us impulsively hanging out. These temporary relationships (in the general term) happen in life because these people are meant to teach us something, I reckon, and the lessons are quick and short, and are often repetitive in nature. The prevalent theme is what I call how to let go.
When you think about friendships in general, you realise that an element of the said friendship is called effort of spending time together, doing things together, and talking and listening to each other. This is precisely why in my life I don't have a lot of people that I can call friends, because friends are difficult to come by. There are plenty of people I am friendly with and I like these people, and it's fine that we are not friends.
Almost all of the people that I used to bump into regularly who decide to pursue their lives else where say "we will stay in touch", "we will continue to hang out", "call me and we will have lunch" bla bla bla. You get the idea. They say that they want to continue the "friendship". I am pretty happy to give these people a chance, but I must say that I have quite an aversion to those with a chronic lag in responding to my emails or my sms-es. I don't call that often, but when I do, you better pick up, unless if you have a really good reason not to. I realise that I sound like some spoilt brat, but really, it is basic common courtesy: someone contacts you, you reply, thankyouverymuch. Even when the reply is to say, sorry, I can't make it, thanks for thinking about me. Actually, make it especially when you can't make it because the people who are inviting you do have lives too you know and they may want to make other plans with other people. It is not fair that you expect them to hold that spot for you when you have no intention of spending time with them.
I realise over and over and over again that I am pretty dumb when it comes to certain lessons. Maybe this is because I like giving people the benefit of the doubt a tiny wee bit too much. These days though, I am happily learning this lesson of letting go: that people's actions speak louder than their words, they leave because they want to pursue their happiness elsewhere and that has nothing to do with me. If they can't make time for me in their next pursue of happiness, then that's fine because that is something beyond my control.
Despite that realisation, I still get peeved from time to time when I have to deal with people who say that they want to keep in touch but hardly ever stay true to their words. I am peeved by the chronically lagged responders and I end up, more often than not, ignoring their correspondence altogether. I mean, what should I say to an email that says like this:
"Hi sweetie! Long time no chat! How are you?"
My friend said, "Good thanks" and then delete the email.
My response - I just don't reply. I delete straight away.
Because that is not how you keep in touch with someone.
Another equally annoying correspondence goes like this
"Hi babe! We should hang out! Are you free for lunch tomorrow?"
This is all great if I am free for lunch tomorrow. The chance of this happening is zero. I am a planner, I always have plans. If you ask to meet me tomorrow and I say yes, that's because I have decided to move something for you. Yes, you do not ask, and I gladly do it for you anyway because I value you that much.
I am happy to give my time to my friends and people I like in this life. And conversely, I am not happy to give me time to people I do not like in this life. People I do not like in my life include people who waste my time. People I do not like include those who are not true to their words. People I do not like include those who are morons and do not realise that they are.
How to keep in touch with anyone
Despite my hang-ups about Facebook, I must admit that it is somehow a rather useful tool to keep in touch. Because we do not have to use words anymore: we can just post a picture and yeap, that's my holiday to wherever and that's the places I saw. I find it rather annoying when someone comments oh did you just go to (insert destination)? D'oh, of course I did. Need you ask that question? A picture speaks a thousand words, words that apparently did not get through to you.
Facebook is useful that way, sure. This kind of connection is relatively new and has only been around since Facebook has been widely used by the global community. It is kind of similar (not the same) in nature to blogs, but it is slightly more personal, if you only add your real life friends on Facebook.
But with my friends, I actually want to know how they really are. How they are going on with their lives. Their dreams, their aspirations, their fears. The things that they only share with their friends. The things that are deep within their souls, and are often intense and are a form of emotional exercise in human connection.
I guess this definition is rather extreme and people are scared by this, which is why "keeping in touch" has been reduced to a "hey how are you we should hang out" that never quite eventuates to a real life catch up.
Sometimes all I want to do is to (1) see you, (2) hug you and (3) make sure that you're ok.
And that is all there is to it.
When you think about friendships in general, you realise that an element of the said friendship is called effort of spending time together, doing things together, and talking and listening to each other. This is precisely why in my life I don't have a lot of people that I can call friends, because friends are difficult to come by. There are plenty of people I am friendly with and I like these people, and it's fine that we are not friends.
Almost all of the people that I used to bump into regularly who decide to pursue their lives else where say "we will stay in touch", "we will continue to hang out", "call me and we will have lunch" bla bla bla. You get the idea. They say that they want to continue the "friendship". I am pretty happy to give these people a chance, but I must say that I have quite an aversion to those with a chronic lag in responding to my emails or my sms-es. I don't call that often, but when I do, you better pick up, unless if you have a really good reason not to. I realise that I sound like some spoilt brat, but really, it is basic common courtesy: someone contacts you, you reply, thankyouverymuch. Even when the reply is to say, sorry, I can't make it, thanks for thinking about me. Actually, make it especially when you can't make it because the people who are inviting you do have lives too you know and they may want to make other plans with other people. It is not fair that you expect them to hold that spot for you when you have no intention of spending time with them.
I realise over and over and over again that I am pretty dumb when it comes to certain lessons. Maybe this is because I like giving people the benefit of the doubt a tiny wee bit too much. These days though, I am happily learning this lesson of letting go: that people's actions speak louder than their words, they leave because they want to pursue their happiness elsewhere and that has nothing to do with me. If they can't make time for me in their next pursue of happiness, then that's fine because that is something beyond my control.
Despite that realisation, I still get peeved from time to time when I have to deal with people who say that they want to keep in touch but hardly ever stay true to their words. I am peeved by the chronically lagged responders and I end up, more often than not, ignoring their correspondence altogether. I mean, what should I say to an email that says like this:
"Hi sweetie! Long time no chat! How are you?"
My friend said, "Good thanks" and then delete the email.
My response - I just don't reply. I delete straight away.
Because that is not how you keep in touch with someone.
Another equally annoying correspondence goes like this
"Hi babe! We should hang out! Are you free for lunch tomorrow?"
This is all great if I am free for lunch tomorrow. The chance of this happening is zero. I am a planner, I always have plans. If you ask to meet me tomorrow and I say yes, that's because I have decided to move something for you. Yes, you do not ask, and I gladly do it for you anyway because I value you that much.
I am happy to give my time to my friends and people I like in this life. And conversely, I am not happy to give me time to people I do not like in this life. People I do not like in my life include people who waste my time. People I do not like include those who are not true to their words. People I do not like include those who are morons and do not realise that they are.
How to keep in touch with anyone
Despite my hang-ups about Facebook, I must admit that it is somehow a rather useful tool to keep in touch. Because we do not have to use words anymore: we can just post a picture and yeap, that's my holiday to wherever and that's the places I saw. I find it rather annoying when someone comments oh did you just go to (insert destination)? D'oh, of course I did. Need you ask that question? A picture speaks a thousand words, words that apparently did not get through to you.
Facebook is useful that way, sure. This kind of connection is relatively new and has only been around since Facebook has been widely used by the global community. It is kind of similar (not the same) in nature to blogs, but it is slightly more personal, if you only add your real life friends on Facebook.
But with my friends, I actually want to know how they really are. How they are going on with their lives. Their dreams, their aspirations, their fears. The things that they only share with their friends. The things that are deep within their souls, and are often intense and are a form of emotional exercise in human connection.
I guess this definition is rather extreme and people are scared by this, which is why "keeping in touch" has been reduced to a "hey how are you we should hang out" that never quite eventuates to a real life catch up.
Sometimes all I want to do is to (1) see you, (2) hug you and (3) make sure that you're ok.
And that is all there is to it.
Thursday 12 September 2013
A crisis of identity
Most of the people who know me in real life are subjected to one phrase that I like to use to get me out of sticky situations: English is my second language. This is one free pass that I use over and over and over again whenever I make grammatical errors and exhibit poor diction, or when I am drunk enough to use double negatives in my speech. I don't think I will ever stop using this free pass because (1) it is actually a statement of fact; (2) it is effective most of the time, including the times whereby people instantly bond with me over the fact that English is also their second, third, fourth language; and (3) it's free! Ha!
Then the day came that one of my favourite persons in this planet openly rolled his eyes in front of me and said something along the lines of "until when are you going to use that excuse" and to which I replied, in all honesty, "for the rest of my life".
Whhaat? See reason (1) above.
And it so happened that we dined at an Indonesian restaurant, whereby I got the opportunity to actually orally converse in my first language. Naturally, I jumped at it and chattered away in Indo, how hard can ordering food be, and got the reply from the waiter (whom was joking and laughing in the kitchen moments before he rocked up at our table) in English.
If this happened one time, I would just totally brush it off as ... err... a case of mistaken identity? And of course, this just had to happen several times with several people on a number of different occasions, and the next thing I know, I rock up in an Indo church and not understand what the sermon is all about. (Kidding. But there was one time whereby that exact thing happened at an Indo church. I attributed that to the fact that the pastor was a poor speaker. Yeap, that totally got nothing to do with my language skills.)
Despite the fact that I speak my first language poorly, one thing that would forever remain true this is: English is still my second language. There is like absolutely nothing weird about preferring to converse in your second language, right? Right?
Then the day came that one of my favourite persons in this planet openly rolled his eyes in front of me and said something along the lines of "until when are you going to use that excuse" and to which I replied, in all honesty, "for the rest of my life".
Whhaat? See reason (1) above.
And it so happened that we dined at an Indonesian restaurant, whereby I got the opportunity to actually orally converse in my first language. Naturally, I jumped at it and chattered away in Indo, how hard can ordering food be, and got the reply from the waiter (whom was joking and laughing in the kitchen moments before he rocked up at our table) in English.
If this happened one time, I would just totally brush it off as ... err... a case of mistaken identity? And of course, this just had to happen several times with several people on a number of different occasions, and the next thing I know, I rock up in an Indo church and not understand what the sermon is all about. (Kidding. But there was one time whereby that exact thing happened at an Indo church. I attributed that to the fact that the pastor was a poor speaker. Yeap, that totally got nothing to do with my language skills.)
Despite the fact that I speak my first language poorly, one thing that would forever remain true this is: English is still my second language. There is like absolutely nothing weird about preferring to converse in your second language, right? Right?
Tuesday 10 September 2013
The bigger person
One of the things that I often catch myself saying is this: why can't people just be normal? This would've been fine if I actually know what normal really is, except that, I think, the only definition I have is what is normal to me.
I get that the rest of the world may not always agree on my perceptions of reality, or my opinions on irrelevant things, however, there must be a certain standard of normalcy that is widely acceptable in all parts of society, which goes beyond saying thank you after someone has done something nice, unexpectedly or not, for you. Or is it just so happen that the people that I hang out with on a regular basis just exist on a different level altogether such that what we consider as normal is considered as ... beyond normal to the general population.
In that case, I am not normal to everyone else, but I am most normal in the spaces that I spend most of my time in, and because I am biased towards liking myself a lot, I take it as well, a good thing to me. Besides, if in this life you are not concerned with (1) how you feel about yourself and (2) how those who care about you feel about you, then I am not sure how you would derive good feelings about yourself. (Sorry, this is terribly articulated, so please, fill the gaps with your logic.)
So then, who we are as people is partially dependent on the people that we hang out with because these people define what is normal for us to exist in this particular continuum. Like it or not, we are somewhat a reflection of our friends, or people we hang out with. In this respect, I get lucky. I have the best of company.
Take for example this particular situation. I was annoyed about something up to the point that I had to tell someone about it. So I tell Person A, who told me to be the bigger person, which I followed because I actually agreed that it was the best course of action... until the next time that I encounter a pretty much similar shit that annoyed me in the first place. Real life re-enactments of things that shit me are just beyond annoying. For some reason I am yet to comprehend, instead of telling Person A, I ended up telling Person B, who happened to be there and most of the time were not exactly privy to information I told Person A. So Person B's default response is for me to be the bigger person. It would take a bit of encouragement and I usually relented and agreed to be the bigger person again. But this doesn't matter to Person B since in his mind, I am just being the bigger person, period.
In retrospect, this is actually good because, oh well, anything that can assist me to be the bigger person is useful, right. However, I am not that nice a person and by the time it's count three, I make no promises that I will continue to exhibit the well-edited characteristics of a bigger person. There's always the raw version, the one that involves you actually standing up for yourself, if I am bothered. Most of the time, I am not. Because once it gets to this stage, in my opinion, that person is not worthy of my time and efforts.
I am writing all of these because I realise that the friends that I do have these days are the people that I can be honest with; the kind of people with whom I don't have to edit my thoughts with. As it is right now, these are rare, and I am grateful. I am also grateful that their default position is to tell me to be the bigger person. But boy oh boy, being the bigger is hard work.
I get that the rest of the world may not always agree on my perceptions of reality, or my opinions on irrelevant things, however, there must be a certain standard of normalcy that is widely acceptable in all parts of society, which goes beyond saying thank you after someone has done something nice, unexpectedly or not, for you. Or is it just so happen that the people that I hang out with on a regular basis just exist on a different level altogether such that what we consider as normal is considered as ... beyond normal to the general population.
In that case, I am not normal to everyone else, but I am most normal in the spaces that I spend most of my time in, and because I am biased towards liking myself a lot, I take it as well, a good thing to me. Besides, if in this life you are not concerned with (1) how you feel about yourself and (2) how those who care about you feel about you, then I am not sure how you would derive good feelings about yourself. (Sorry, this is terribly articulated, so please, fill the gaps with your logic.)
So then, who we are as people is partially dependent on the people that we hang out with because these people define what is normal for us to exist in this particular continuum. Like it or not, we are somewhat a reflection of our friends, or people we hang out with. In this respect, I get lucky. I have the best of company.
Take for example this particular situation. I was annoyed about something up to the point that I had to tell someone about it. So I tell Person A, who told me to be the bigger person, which I followed because I actually agreed that it was the best course of action... until the next time that I encounter a pretty much similar shit that annoyed me in the first place. Real life re-enactments of things that shit me are just beyond annoying. For some reason I am yet to comprehend, instead of telling Person A, I ended up telling Person B, who happened to be there and most of the time were not exactly privy to information I told Person A. So Person B's default response is for me to be the bigger person. It would take a bit of encouragement and I usually relented and agreed to be the bigger person again. But this doesn't matter to Person B since in his mind, I am just being the bigger person, period.
In retrospect, this is actually good because, oh well, anything that can assist me to be the bigger person is useful, right. However, I am not that nice a person and by the time it's count three, I make no promises that I will continue to exhibit the well-edited characteristics of a bigger person. There's always the raw version, the one that involves you actually standing up for yourself, if I am bothered. Most of the time, I am not. Because once it gets to this stage, in my opinion, that person is not worthy of my time and efforts.
I am writing all of these because I realise that the friends that I do have these days are the people that I can be honest with; the kind of people with whom I don't have to edit my thoughts with. As it is right now, these are rare, and I am grateful. I am also grateful that their default position is to tell me to be the bigger person. But boy oh boy, being the bigger is hard work.
Friday 6 September 2013
It's hard being a girl and in her twenties
It seems like everyone is watching Girls. And if you haven't heard of Lena Durham, well, don't know where you've been hiding. I find the series hilarious; it got me laughing so I gotta say, I kind of like it. The lost generation. The misunderstood. It's like finally, a show about almost mimics real life. Or at least the issues that we, real-life girls are facing. Not all of our issues (yet), but some of it. I think to a certain extent we struggle with the question of where am I going in life, what do I want in life, or some even say, what's my purpose of living in this life. I know that I struggle, for sure. There are people who know exactly what they are doing and are very passionate about where they want to be and know very well that they are well on their way to get there, and I know a few of these people personally, and I am definitely not one of these people.
Take for example, courting and dating. The excitement, exhilaration, the potential hope of meeting the one, and the chance for that moment in time whereby your life is going to change forever in a way that you don't know just yet. I am a proponent of dating as many people as you possibly can, I liken this process to research. And why the hell not, especially if you can. My parents will kill me as soon as they read this because they obviously have a different view. But trust me when I say that I form mine not because I want to rebel against them. It is because I believe, just like anything else in life, meeting the one is a process that we can't rush, somewhere in that process we need to discover ourselves (or at least part of ourselves that we have not discovered before), we get to know what we want, or at the very minimal, what we don't want, and take it from there. And we need to do this knowing that there is an option for exit, simply because just like anything else in life, this is a trial and error. It is an experiment that involves two adults (or more) and their feelings, so there is that risk that someone, anyone, will get hurt. That someone may be you. This risk may or may not be worth taking depending on how important it is for you to have that moment in time whereby your life is going to change forever in a way that you have not yet begun to anticipate. No risk no gain.
Another thing that we all struggle with is our careers. The struggle, in my opinion, is not so much about us not knowing what we want to do because we inherently know what it is we want to do (whether we are honest with ourselves or not is a different issue altogether); the struggle is more about leaving something we are good at and starting something that we really want to do. In a way, the challenge that we are struggling with is more universal in nature: leaving the comfortable life and starting something new, fear of the unknown and the uncertainties of this new path that looks alluring and something we think we may enjoy more, which does not mean that we dislike our current professions, but rather we are curious of exploring a different option that appears to be more attractive to us. This is a very personal choice and one that is perhaps the hardest to make. Because if you ask someone from your current profession, they will say stay in this profession because that's the only thing they've known all their lives. If you ask someone else from a different profession, they will say do it for the same reason, that's the only thing that they can speak about. Everyone can only speak about their experiences and their choices may not be suitable for you. This is not a bad thing per se, chance is that most people are actually honest in their responses, but we must recognise that these responses are very subjective in nature and may be biased towards the individual. Or to put it differently: you gotta decide what's best for yourself and run with it. Easier said than done. But nothing worth doing in this life is ever easy, so it is worth all the hard work and deliberations and the sleepless nights of you working up enough courage to make the decision in the first place. The decision that you know is the best and most suitable for you.
I admire the character of Hannah Horvath who stuck to her guns of being a writer, struggling to find employment while being forced to be independent by her parents. Will people acknowledge that being twenty-something often means we hardly have any spare cash. Seriously, starting out in our career and being independent often mean most of our salaries goes towards this thing called rent, and that paying this thing takes some time to get used to (i.e. the adjustment period) because for all of our lives we have lived free of rent thanks to our parents who put roofs over our heads. Plus the fact that we are young and we want to have fun, and we are still figuring out so many things about ourselves including what we want in life, that just mean our lives are full of experiments, and the outcome of these experiments may or may not be favourable. We all make mistakes. We've been told that we need to make all these mistakes while we are young, and so we experiment. This does not mean we are reckless in our experiments, in fact, most of us actually think about it and devise ways to make it successful. But just because we want to be successful does not mean that we are immune from failure. I have come to realise that the good people in my life are the ones who are forgiving and tolerant of the mistakes that I make. They are the people that say: ok, thanks for telling me, now go fix it. And then, they don't even bring it up. But I remember my mistakes and I occasionally still get mortified from thinking about them. Of course I strive not to repeat them, which is why I remember them (and get mortified) from time to time.
Sometimes I think being young is so ... ironic. This is meant to be the time of your life. Lately I am beginning to wonder if older people are saying that only to make the younger ones feel better. I guess I belong to the camp that regards life is hard, and it is beautiful because it is hard. I don't know why this is the case, but whenever someone says that life is beautiful, I somehow equate that with life is easy, which we all know, is not true. Sometimes life is easy, but most of the time, it is hard work.
Take for example, courting and dating. The excitement, exhilaration, the potential hope of meeting the one, and the chance for that moment in time whereby your life is going to change forever in a way that you don't know just yet. I am a proponent of dating as many people as you possibly can, I liken this process to research. And why the hell not, especially if you can. My parents will kill me as soon as they read this because they obviously have a different view. But trust me when I say that I form mine not because I want to rebel against them. It is because I believe, just like anything else in life, meeting the one is a process that we can't rush, somewhere in that process we need to discover ourselves (or at least part of ourselves that we have not discovered before), we get to know what we want, or at the very minimal, what we don't want, and take it from there. And we need to do this knowing that there is an option for exit, simply because just like anything else in life, this is a trial and error. It is an experiment that involves two adults (or more) and their feelings, so there is that risk that someone, anyone, will get hurt. That someone may be you. This risk may or may not be worth taking depending on how important it is for you to have that moment in time whereby your life is going to change forever in a way that you have not yet begun to anticipate. No risk no gain.
Another thing that we all struggle with is our careers. The struggle, in my opinion, is not so much about us not knowing what we want to do because we inherently know what it is we want to do (whether we are honest with ourselves or not is a different issue altogether); the struggle is more about leaving something we are good at and starting something that we really want to do. In a way, the challenge that we are struggling with is more universal in nature: leaving the comfortable life and starting something new, fear of the unknown and the uncertainties of this new path that looks alluring and something we think we may enjoy more, which does not mean that we dislike our current professions, but rather we are curious of exploring a different option that appears to be more attractive to us. This is a very personal choice and one that is perhaps the hardest to make. Because if you ask someone from your current profession, they will say stay in this profession because that's the only thing they've known all their lives. If you ask someone else from a different profession, they will say do it for the same reason, that's the only thing that they can speak about. Everyone can only speak about their experiences and their choices may not be suitable for you. This is not a bad thing per se, chance is that most people are actually honest in their responses, but we must recognise that these responses are very subjective in nature and may be biased towards the individual. Or to put it differently: you gotta decide what's best for yourself and run with it. Easier said than done. But nothing worth doing in this life is ever easy, so it is worth all the hard work and deliberations and the sleepless nights of you working up enough courage to make the decision in the first place. The decision that you know is the best and most suitable for you.
I admire the character of Hannah Horvath who stuck to her guns of being a writer, struggling to find employment while being forced to be independent by her parents. Will people acknowledge that being twenty-something often means we hardly have any spare cash. Seriously, starting out in our career and being independent often mean most of our salaries goes towards this thing called rent, and that paying this thing takes some time to get used to (i.e. the adjustment period) because for all of our lives we have lived free of rent thanks to our parents who put roofs over our heads. Plus the fact that we are young and we want to have fun, and we are still figuring out so many things about ourselves including what we want in life, that just mean our lives are full of experiments, and the outcome of these experiments may or may not be favourable. We all make mistakes. We've been told that we need to make all these mistakes while we are young, and so we experiment. This does not mean we are reckless in our experiments, in fact, most of us actually think about it and devise ways to make it successful. But just because we want to be successful does not mean that we are immune from failure. I have come to realise that the good people in my life are the ones who are forgiving and tolerant of the mistakes that I make. They are the people that say: ok, thanks for telling me, now go fix it. And then, they don't even bring it up. But I remember my mistakes and I occasionally still get mortified from thinking about them. Of course I strive not to repeat them, which is why I remember them (and get mortified) from time to time.
Sometimes I think being young is so ... ironic. This is meant to be the time of your life. Lately I am beginning to wonder if older people are saying that only to make the younger ones feel better. I guess I belong to the camp that regards life is hard, and it is beautiful because it is hard. I don't know why this is the case, but whenever someone says that life is beautiful, I somehow equate that with life is easy, which we all know, is not true. Sometimes life is easy, but most of the time, it is hard work.
Tuesday 3 September 2013
Accentuating the positives
Instagram is fast becoming a verb in my vocabulary.
In using that word as a verb, I run the risk of offending people that I use that word upon, i.e. "can I instagram you?"
Most people who are of my generation (I am a Gen-Y, by the way) would say ok and its variants. Most people who are older would say no and its variants. That's ok, I get it, some people just do not like to be a part of my instagram account.
I instagram because there are moments that I would like to remember. As I get older, I realise that quite a lot of things are becoming fuzzy memories. I am not sure if it's a function of my brain capabilities (God forbid, at this age?). I sure hope not.
Some moments are meant to be remembered and therefore instagramed. These moments come in the form of your smile when you see me (my personal favourite), or the funny faces that you make (I got away with this once, and I did not ask for permission, I am yet to withstand the wrath of that person).
But since you said no, I have to resort to something else, like say, the coffee that we are about to drink, the dessert that we are about to gorge, or the food that you just cook. I am not showing off, believe me, I am just sharing some good moments.
Instagram is full of good moments, which is why I like it. Facebook on the other hand, well, it's sort of full of rants. Twitter is full of random useful facts, which makes it infinitely more interesting than the other two.
But out of the three, Instagram is the only one that promotes good feelings. I think it's because the filters make everything look better than it actually is.
At least the illusion is believeable. Afterall, life is as you see it.
I see mine through Instagram, sometimes.
Oh, in case you want to know, my account is @drbelleb
(The link requires you to login to your Instagram account.)
In using that word as a verb, I run the risk of offending people that I use that word upon, i.e. "can I instagram you?"
Most people who are of my generation (I am a Gen-Y, by the way) would say ok and its variants. Most people who are older would say no and its variants. That's ok, I get it, some people just do not like to be a part of my instagram account.
I instagram because there are moments that I would like to remember. As I get older, I realise that quite a lot of things are becoming fuzzy memories. I am not sure if it's a function of my brain capabilities (God forbid, at this age?). I sure hope not.
Some moments are meant to be remembered and therefore instagramed. These moments come in the form of your smile when you see me (my personal favourite), or the funny faces that you make (I got away with this once, and I did not ask for permission, I am yet to withstand the wrath of that person).
But since you said no, I have to resort to something else, like say, the coffee that we are about to drink, the dessert that we are about to gorge, or the food that you just cook. I am not showing off, believe me, I am just sharing some good moments.
Instagram is full of good moments, which is why I like it. Facebook on the other hand, well, it's sort of full of rants. Twitter is full of random useful facts, which makes it infinitely more interesting than the other two.
But out of the three, Instagram is the only one that promotes good feelings. I think it's because the filters make everything look better than it actually is.
At least the illusion is believeable. Afterall, life is as you see it.
I see mine through Instagram, sometimes.
Oh, in case you want to know, my account is @drbelleb
(The link requires you to login to your Instagram account.)
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