When you persevere, good things happen

September 16, 2019

Life teaches you to be patient with the challenges thrown your away. It shows you that things will eventually get better. The silver lining is what most people persevere for. The dark clouds will always pass and bring out the sunshine.

Some challenges are extremely testing. Perhaps the use of the word extreme is itself that. But the feeling of struggle and remorse are never dishonest. If you’re struggling, you’re struggling.

But like an athletic race of hurdles, the race is forward and is only considered over after all obstacles are ran over. Running under or around does not count. That’s just the rule of the game.

I was a sprinter back in high school and used to run hurdles during athletic sport competitions. There were a few outcomes from the race. My favourite was obviously to win. But when I didn’t, I realised a few things which I used as life lessons:

Being angry doesn’t mean others should suffer

July 2, 2019

“Don’t take it out on me just because you’re upset with the other person”

I believe we have all been victims of other people’s anger/grouses at some point in our lives. We’ve also probably made other people victims of our own. I’d like to think it’s unintentional and for some reason or another, just something that tends to happen.

For the most part, the people we’re dealing with are our loved ones. The classic case is they were upset about something or someone else in their life, and they took it out on you unintentionally.

The things adversity can teach us

April 16, 2019

My favourite line to joke around with friends when in the face of adversity is “The struggle is real”. Nothing seems to encapsulate the moment better I feel.

We will always face struggles in our daily lives. Adversity is that one friend in our life that we don’t want, but has something to teach us. It’s among us and frankly, we might as well learn to ride with it.

Marie Kondo came into my life at the right time

February 13, 2019

I know that by now, just mentioning Marie Kondo’s name is a cliché, let alone that term, spark joy.

But I must tell you, she came into my life at the right time.

Specifically, she came into my life in 2018, about 6 months after I turned 26 when I was slowly coming out of a phase of jadedness with renewed life spirit. As they say, I was ready to KonMari the heck out of my entangled mind, my soul, and of course, my room full of things.

Some days I do wonder if this was all fated.

A head full of darkness

September 1, 2018

Depression comes in many forms and varies in degree. Some are very serious, need to be clinically treated while others are mild, possibly not even noticed. But it doesn’t mean that it’s not there.

The latter best describes how I would diagnose myself if had to diagnose myself for depression. I don’t have it. But sometimes, some days, it feels like I do.

Why I write

July 22, 2018

George Orwell listed four motives for writing in his 1946 essay Why I write which can be summed as Sheer egoism, Aesthetic enthusiasm, Historical impulse, and Political purpose.

While I do agree with Orwell that these motives probably exist in every writer, I’ve come to find that my primary motive in wanting to write is more intuitive and straight foward.

Empathy is a life long journey

July 2, 2018

A friend once asked me whether I knew the difference between empathy and sympathy.

Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone, and empathy is putting yourself in their shoes?
Yeah! I thought you didn’t know. Anyways I feel it’s more important to show empathy.

Let your parents do their job

June 27, 2018

Now that I am a bit older and have quite passed the raging hormones of a bitter adolescent, I feel like I can appreciate my parents more.

I know this happens to all of us, we only begin to show true appreciation when we have gained more maturity or are ourselves have become/about to share the same experience.

I’m writing this post because I recently had a moment where it finally hit me – this will be me one day.

25 was a hard year

May 27, 2018

Now that I’m no longer 25, I guess I could reflect a bit on what felt like a really hard year.

On my self esteem that is.

Respond, don’t react

February 9, 2018

Someone very close once told me to focus on responding to a situation, instead of reacting. We were having an argument and that person later sent me a quote saying “Respond, don’t react” and I must admit, I couldn’t help but smile.

There was an elaborate explanation that accompanied the quote which goes: