Starting Where You Are

There are many ways to do the right things. Many means to go about accomplishing a certain end. When we seek for help in accomplishing our goals, or in creating a more favorable situation for ourselves, we are faced with a million choices when it comes to  H O W  T O  G E T  T H E R E.

"There" usually being:

• better health
• better living situation
• a more fulfilling career path

Et cetera. There could be a thousand versions of even this list if we're being honest, but here let's just call them General Things to be Better at. That doesn't really work. How about Betterment Goals. I don't like how that sounds either. But this illustrates my point. Words can fail. 

The main focus of whatever journey you take on in getting yourself somewhere better in life, in whatever form "Being Better" would manifest in your imagination, should be 

W H E R E V E R  Y O U  A R E.

 R I G H T  H E R E

R I G H T  N O W.

And this is why many self-betterment guides would start with you listing your own answers to their questions. And yes, I am not here to discount you searching for those guides. In fact, depending on your personality, it might be better to look for more than one "guru" or whatever you want to call it, so that you can curate whatever resonates in your life in particular from many different sources, and make the roadmap you eventually follow your very own.

We like learning from others because we like information already processed and laid out for us to take in. This is easier than having to start from scratch, scrambling to find crumbs that will lead us to the bread, trying to find all the ingredients on our own. This is why we have grocery stores. I think I need to eat soon. I'm getting a little sidetracked.

Anyway, this is not a bad thing. This really does help. What I want to emphasize though, is that we should not be so naive and think that betterment ends in that learning. We take many things in. We make it our own. We share how we made it our own. Maybe more people will find it resonate better. They will take some of it in, just like how we took from others. Then they will make it their own.

Words do not contain the entirety of meaning. Other people can not provide the secrets to your success. Something has to come from you.

And yes, a lot of it relies on luck. But your luck improves when you improve your striving in finding these answers.

So, let me ask you a bunch of questions:

1. Outlook: Do you think you have a positive one? When you think about your day upon waking up in the morning, how do you feel? What causes anxiety in you? What causes joy? Do you notice yourself feeling one more often than the other? Why do you think so? Are you okay with that? (Like I wake up meh most mornings, but I'm cool with it. I think it's just how I am and it's fine) And if you're not, is there anything within your power that you can change?
2. The Good: What's already working out? This is important. What do you like that you don't really want to change in yourself, your living situation, your habits? You don't have to change everything. Maybe you don't even have to change very much. Honestly you don't even have to change at all. Let's be real. Your life your rules.
3. The Bad: But if there are things that aren't working out, maybe take some time to look at them. There are things that don't work out that are too uncomfortable to even acknowledge so we fail to realize that there's something there that we can actually control. But then there are things that we feel we have no power over. For those things, is it possible to tell someone? "Misery loves company" and this isn't just a sadistic urge that humans have for no reason. When we find others with the same problems, we are able to pick each other's brains about possible solutions. There's another one, "Two heads are better than one". Maybe there's something you're not seeing that someone's who's gone through the same thing knows about. That was a long painful sentence to read and I apologize.
4. The Ugly: Let me just talk about that word, Ugly. It has a bad rep. But I love it. I'm part of the niche crowd that uses it with a sense of endearment. Much of my hang-ups in life, I solved by changing my relationship with Ugly. More than my sense of self-worth ceasing to depend on my outward appearance, I see ugly as a sign of progress. Ugly is something that's on its way towards becoming. It's finding one's way. It's not incomplete, it's just in the process, and that's what life is. It's only complete when it ends. And So I Therefore Conclude: Ugliness and Beauty is like Life and Death. Polar opposites that are unalienable from each other. Just like.. well, poles. 

          So. In your life, what's being completed? What's in the middle of the process; something you started but haven't finished? Something you like but isn't "quite there yet"? And maybe, how do we look at it differently? As you being a Real Live Person, in the middle of figuring things out?

So there are questions for today. Maybe we ask them every now and then. This can be a model we use everyday when we meditate in the morning, or this could be just a one time thing. It's a dish I've made from ingredients I've taken from different sources that I have now served to you. Maybe you take something out from it, or maybe you just eat and run, and burn off all of the energy. But that's your process. Make it yours. As for me, I'm done with this one, and hoping to make more in the future.

Now, lunch.

Emotional Minimalism

What if you could declutter your feelings?

What if you could look over the stock of emotional reactions you keep around, decide which ones to keep, and which ones aren't serving you anymore, and let them go?

Sure you can't toss people out in your life, there will always be bad apples in your circles, maybe even your family, but what if you can toss out the guilt, shame, undeserved care, or any other feeling associated with them that doesn't do anyone any good?

What if you can free yourself from the insecurity of not being as good as you want to be, and make some space to stock up on feeling excited about how much you can improve instead? After all, minimalism isn't about merely having less, but rather having what is essential, and forgoing everything else.

What if you could accept and recognize the effect of toxic people on you and decide not to feel obliged to impress them, and allow yourself to keep a civil, safe distance?

The thing is, you can. Sure, it's not an exact analogy: there is no before-and-after picture you can take, and it cannot be done over one long holiday. Emotions are habits, not things, and saying they're easy to quit is like saying beating addiction is as simple as just not buying cigarettes anymore.

Most days it would feel like giving away old clothes, only to find them back in your closet the next day. Emotions are clothes, if clothes were alive and could crawl.

Emotional decluttering feels more like training a muscle. You'll have to do it regularly, but there will always be an improvement, and it should only get easier over time.

And the way to start is to stop and decide to be aware of what you have in there in the first place. A lot of objectivity, a listening ear from a friend, maybe even a bit of journalling, but the most important thing is to choose to be aware of how you feel from now on.

Know that your emotions don't have to BE you. You don't have to let the monstrous black tides that wash over you pull you away into an endless sea of hopelessness or anger. You are more like a shelf, and emotions are the books you put into it. And sure, the longer you keep some books in there, the more they're going to look like they're part of that shelf, and the shelf won't ever be the same without them. That's all fine and good if you're keeping good classics in there that remind you of how to strive in life, and how to create and keep joy. How to love, or feel grateful, so sure keep those. But if they're shitty novels or gossip rags, would the shelf never being the same be such a bad thing?

It's hard, and it will take time. But it's a choice you can always make.

And again, Minimalism is not about having the least possible amount, but about having less of what you don't need, and more of what is essential. So perhaps, replacing the bad with the good will do you more favors than just trying to create a void and resisting the icky feelings when they come. Build the habit of hopping onto a happier train of thought instead of boring a hole into an awkward memory of a moment that you can't change.

There is loads of good advice out there about the hows of it all, but the most important part is to remind yourself that it's an option. There is a different way to live. There is a way to think kinder, that is, thinking in a way that is kinder to yourself, and this will allow you to also be kinder to others.

Since we're welcoming a new year soon, perhaps it would be a good time to start.

🛫expanding the target🎯

there will be times where it will feel like

you're jumping off
                               a
                                   c
                                     l
                                      i
                                       f
                                        f

towards a --------------->   tiny target   <-------------------


and so it'll feel like it means E V E R Y T H I N G to you,

like it was somehow so very...
dense



in that, it's    so    very  
                                           small,       so         very     
                                                                                                            far,    so     very    hard   to   nail

but

weighed 

so, 

so 

MUCH.

and there's just this formidable nothingness

surrounding it

enveloping it and

threatening your life

and the more you look at it

the harder it is to look away

and more and more you feel like

there is no way

that you wouldn't fail

that you wouldn't miss

that you wouldn't just

go back to nothing


And when that nothingness threatens you
I hope you remember

That nothing doesn't have to be nothing
you can fill all that space with
a whole bunch of somethings

And those whole bunch of somethings
can turn into   c                                                    o                                                       w      s    .         .
                             l      o        d     s,               s          f                   p      i               o                        .
                                          u                                            t                         l    l


on which,

                 if you fail,

                                  (and we're still hoping that you won't)



                                              you can softly,



                                                          gently,




                                                                 land



                                                                  (even if it's with tears in your eyes)


                                                                           so that instead of s h a t t e r i n g

                                                                                you can simply find your feet

                                                                                    dust yourself off
                                                                                             get back up
                                                                                                                and walk over

to something  new.         

Chasing The Present

photo: mine from Christmas Day. heheh.

Why is it so hard to stay present in our own lives?

It's probably not because of a lack of being reminded of it. We get reminded of it all the time, and yet, like being told to put sunscreen on, it soon becomes like background noise. Something you expect to hear, and agree to, it's just hard to apply it to your life. But why?

I'm guessing a lot of it is because of the fact that even though there are so many ways to put it into words (eg. live in the now, YOLO, be here now, wherever you are, there you are, be present, etc), as a concept, it has an odd ability to stay just a bit out of grasp, even after you understand it one time.

Because it's a way to be and to do things, not an activity in itself.

We can never hand out how to be present in specific, all-encompassing terms. We can only talk about what it could feel like, what it could cause, things that could probably help get us there.

It's not a one-size-fits-all type of deal. Everyone will have a different level of openness to the present that could give them the most benefit, and everyone would respond very differently to different ways to achieve this mental state.

However. it's a little bit easier to notice a severe lack of it.

We lack presence when we feel time go really fast. It means we spent a lot of time in our heads and have come back to our surroundings on a much later date or hour than we expected it to be. When we are riddled with regret, we know that we were stuck back in the past for a little bit. When everything around us seems dull compared to our dreams, we know we spent too much time imagining the future instead of being here, to make the future happen.

I guess what I'm saying is... being in the present moment is a little bit like happiness - it is best to approach it calmly, with open eyes and an open mind, and allowing it to fall into your hands. When you chase it, you lose it. Because it doesn't come from anywhere else but inside yourself.

See, it's hard to not sound mystical when trying to explain it!

But as I've said, a little bit more openness is helpful. And quite worth it, once you get to a point where it comes a lot easier. But things get a bit weird when what you need to be open to is not to do something more, but to do something less. To stop trying so hard.

Here are the personal tools I use when I attempt to pull myself back into here and now. I hope you find them helpful, if you feel open enough to receive them:

• Stop trying to be present. When you are fully present and are used to the sensation, it should not feel like trying at all. If it feels like trying at first, that's okay. But don't try too hard. You'll lose the calm required, and you'll use up will power that you could use for other things that let you function in your life. It's alright, we are humans and we need thinking about the past and future to make sense of our surroundings and lives. The key is to just stay open and to not get lost in these thoughts, so we can let the present flow, and be at peace with whatever comes.
• Let go of worry. A nice albeit morbid activity that I've recently embraced is to think about the impermanence of life and our eventual death, or Memento Mori. The first time I came across the idea, though. I internally flinched, because I thought I could never really think about death without feeling haunted by it. I can't not worry about it. But that actually goes against what Memento Mori is trying to achieve. Reminders of how short life is are not there to make us worry about it, which would take us away from the present, but to make us accept what's there at the end, and so we end up valuing what's here, now, even more. "Death is there, not here. Let there take care of itself, and let me take care of here."
• Be curious. Perhaps the most natural way to be in a state of flow. Follow your curiosity, and for any other old thing that you need to deal with, be genuinely curious about that. We often take curiosity for granted, as if it's something that can only occur spontaneously, but it can be helped along by a little effort from ourselves. It can be what makes a boring, soul-sucking errand turn into an interesting, complicated and stimulating activity. This is the only thing in this list that doesn't ask you to stop doing something, and that's what makes it the most important one. Avoiding things will never be as effective as simply replacing them with something better (even with diets!). And so never forget this most important step.

The Inner Lives of Strangers

A picture I took out my window yesterday while the rain was pouring. I snapped it just as this person was walking by and thought it looked a bit like something off of a Ghibli film.

I enjoy people-watching. And I know many other people who enjoy it too. I think it's natural for people to come into a somewhat voyeuristic trance when doing this, and sort of feel detached from their surroundings, as if they are looking into a glass window. It can be fun to be curious, to wonder about where everyone comes from, how they find the weather, who they love, and if they are happy.

But every so often, there is a risk of this detachment turning into something a bit more cynical, and it's as if we are looking into a glass bowl instead, with puny mindless fish inside. We are tempted to fancy our lives and minds more complex and colorful than theirs, simply because of the context we see them in. I come across posts online that on the surface seem to be helpful and insightful, asking for the reader to keep their eyes off their phones, to rush less and enjoy their surroundings, unlike the zombies in the picture with their eyes glued to their phones (non-verbatim of course). Just because everyone around you is rushing around, or doing common things, doesn't mean you are alone among mindless creatures of passive, mundane existence.

I believe there is a danger to painting with very broad brushes when we look at others in their unguarded moments. Any bitter sentiment stemming from feeling like everybody is dull more likely stems from an issue we have to deal with in ourselves, rather than the actual people around us that trigger these feelings. It reflects our own limited perspective, or perhaps imagination, when it comes to the complexity of life outside of our own immediate awareness.

It can be very helpful to approach thinking about the inner lives of strangers with suspended judgement, and more curiosity instead. Helpful not only for the people in question so that we may be kinder to them, but also, and this is true even if we never even interact with them; to our own peace of mind. Because we then feel less loneliness in being our complicated selves, when we realize that there are so many various interesting lives that we are not living, and we can only witness through being open to others when we interact with them. 

Confidence: An Underrated Virtue

We often regard confidence with the same aversion and slight intimidation that we do arrogance. In fact as a child, I saw the two as ultimately the same, save for how one has a positive connotation while the other has a negative one. But in my adult life, I find confidence to be a necessary trait that I often yearn for and find myself lacking in.

I find that in my culture, confidence is often discouraged. One would often hear a qualifier or an apology next to any statement that has any semblance of self-assuredness or assertiveness and one would risk isolation if they came off too strong or believed in themselves too much. 

However, there are more things separating confidence from arrogance apart from how positively or negatively their connotations are viewed. While arrogance is about an inflated sense and projection of oneself that may stem from insecurity, confidence can be alternatively interpreted as something that rests on a certain tranquility in who a person is, a steadiness of being, and accuracy of intent behind one's actions.

In fact, in this School of Life video, (which by the way do watch it after you read this if you have time. changed my life.) it is listed as a modern age virtue, along with compassion, resilience, empathy, hope, and other things that we'd expect from such a list. 

"Confidence is not arrogance. It is based on constant awareness of how short life is and how little we ultimately lose from risking everything." - Alain de Botton

Confidence, viewed as a virtue, becomes a very crucial part of self-actualisation. We need confidence to go after our ideas, even some of the untested and seemingly impractical ones, in order to make anything new or useful in the world. We are beings of action. No matter what beliefs we have, no matter what our insides look like, it is through action that we interact with the world and cause change. And without confidence in ourselves, we are missing many opportunities to be a source of goodness, comfort, or help in the world.

Many things, I find, are only as easy as we preemptively estimate them to be. There is only a certain number of times in which you need to do an action before the learning curve is done and you could do it without much conscious thought, but when we start doubting ourselves, that automation falters. Sometimes, we shoot ourselves in our own foot when we start off with zero confidence.

Even the best messages fail to inspire when shared with a shaky voice. We might do our good ideas a disservice if we are not confident in ourselves while trying to implement them. In fact, we might end up not doing them at all if we had no confidence.

Here are three tips I try to implement in my own life in order to be more confident (I haven't mastered them of course, we are all learning these things together!):

1. Stop micromanaging information - I tend to be someone who wants to know every single detail before progressing with tasks, or even my life. Some things that catch my attention are so tedious and ultimately non-important but take so much of my energy away from what matters. And once it's taken the reins of my thought process, it leaves me with so much uneasiness in myself, insecurity, and anxiety. I try now to block unimportant, nagging thoughts that drain my energy (like embarrassing conversations from years ago that nobody else remembers, or all the possible ways I could write a sentence better) and try to re-orient my attention to the present moment, and the next important step. This can be very hard when I'm really lost in a thought process, but I've started doing this thing where, when I catch myself starting a thought spiral, I shout and call Beardy and just ask him what's up. He knows what it means now. Haha.

2. Be present, or in non-mystical terms, focus on the task/event/conversation at hand. - Once I've put all of the noise aside, what's left to think about? This is where some perspective training is needed. I try to take on the perspective of a normal functioning adult, as I interpret it, and just focus on the task at hand, or the topic being discussed, instead of, for example, how I sound or look to the person I'm talking to, which might kill my confidence. As a very distracted person, it can be quite hard to figure out what the meat of the matter is at any given moment; I often get lost in my own head, but I'm training myself to see what everyone else must be seeing, by trying to stay present and truly pay attention to what people communicate, and to what's happening around me.

3. Practice. - A very important step. Many things we learn don't help us not because they weren't insightful enough nor blatantly false but simply because we didn't implement them well enough. To learn anything, we need to practice it until it becomes second nature to us, until it stops being something we have to think about and push ourselves to do. It just becomes who we are. Take Mindy Kaling's example:

I love the implications of this statement. Confidence is a thing that happens by default when we are not subdued by events or people in our lives that make us think we should be anything less than we are. As unnatural as confidence may feel to some of us, it is only right that we try to regain it in ourselves because it's not something that we can wait for in a society as skewed as ours. We must accept ourselves as however we come into the world and then proceed to take advantage of the limited time we have by taking a chance on our own dreams, ideas, and whatever brings us joy.

Friends and FOMO: Let Live Does Not Mean Let Go

FO·MO

ˈfōmō/

noun

informal

1. anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on a social media website.

I've always thought I was a victim of FOMO. A fear of missing out. I think about it whenever I feel my face get red from the shame of feeling like an obsessive ex-boyfriend when I see pictures of my friends hanging out with other people on my feed. It makes me feel like I'm stalking their lives, which is silly, because the whole point to a news feed is that the information is fed to you. I didn't exactly seek it out!

Well, okay, I actually make a point to visit their profiles every now and then to check on them. Which is sometimes a futile act because the reason I feel this need is due to unanswered private messages, which are probably unanswered because they were offline in the first place. And I'm pretty sure I'm the one who is online the most among all of us. I'm the one who's online the most, and goes out the least. So yeah, as you can see, it's a recipe for disaster.

But recently I tried to look into what I truly do feel, and I realised that I don't actually have FOMO, per se.

I don't fear that I'm missing out on a good time; I fear that I'm missing out on their lives. I fear that they don't want me in them anymore.

I'm being clingy. 

We are all individual people with complex lives. The beauty of friendship is that you choose to be friends. You don't own your friends. You don't belong to your friends.  You are not forced to be together by some external force like work or being neighbors (although many good friendships can start that way). But you choose to interact in a deep way anyway. As individual people.

So I told myself, and now I guess I'm telling anyone who needs to hear it: It's not all or nothing. They say we should only keep those who always make an effort, but there are times where our friends are the ones who make an effort and it's us who don't notice. So when we feel like they're being absent a bit, we must take a step back and realize that sometimes, a friendship needs distance for the individuals to roam around and have some stories to return with. Sometimes, people just need to put other things first, or just finds a different person really cool to hang out with right now, and that doesn't mean you don't matter. And at times, the best thing we can do to maintain the great friendships in our lives is to let our friends bloom into the people they're meant to become. To offer support and to be there for them when we are needed, but ultimately, to wish them the best (and sometimes help them get the best!)

Of course, I am not including toxic friendships here, I hope you already know that! Some people are just bad for us. But for the people who are good for us but we keep missing chances to be with, we must stop ourselves from feeling abandoned by them. Let live. No need to let go!

This is not to say of course that we should give up on trying to be in their lives more frequently (I sure as hell am not done trying! We'll make this work guys!) but that when things don't work out, we don't need to feel discouraged about the value of our friendships. In fact, when our friends live rich and colorful lives outside the scope of our friendship, we also expand as people through seeing the world through their stories from when they were apart from us! Hanging out less doesn't have to mean falling apart. Sometimes, pursuing other things can decrease the quantity but increase the quality of our conversations.

So yep, after thinking of all that, I hope that like me, your FOMO has been replaced with excitement instead about the next time you get to sit beside each other and talk about ALL THE THINGS!

♥

Fate·a·li·ty

Just a warning, I will say the word "fate" here at least 1/10 times as much as it was said in this ^ movie.

I used to romanticise a few things that I find silly now: Unrequited Love, my future that I believed was "destined" for me, my fate in general.

I fancied myself a martyr for love, and I guess deep inside I was holding out for fate, believing it was destiny I sensed that caused my obsessions for those innocent bystanders that I happen to ordain with my affection from afar.

Of course it was not, and instead it was me choosing them, I didn't know I was, but I chose them while simultaneously holding on to the belief that I wasn't choosing them; that fate chose them for me somehow, and thus my obsession lingered and festered and ate me from inside.

I fancied myself special, someone inherently "meant to succeed", who cannot possibly fail, someone who'd find their way handed to them even if they just sit idly by, because people will recognise whatever value they had within them.

Of course this wasn't the case, and I soon found that I had to actively Show Up, Get Inspired, Have Ideas, Create Things, and Show My Work in order to be of value to anyone. I will not always be able to rely on people assigning things for me to create. Life as a creator means finding the needs myself, and filling up the spaces I find; a skill I'm still trying hard to learn to this day.

Life does not choose. Life is a book where our stories are written as they happen. Fate on the other hand, is like an imaginary book where things that have not happened are already written and fixed. How do we find out our fate? We can't. It cannot actually exist outside of the present moment and the moments that have already passed. Fate is a concept we pick up in our deck of psychological ways to cope when we want to be sure of things, or contented with what is there. It is something we sometimes use to soothe ourselves of our own responsibility in how our lives turn out. That's the difference between saying "Whatever happens is meant to be." and saying, rather that "Whatever happens, happens." The first one assumes that there's something else that is in charge. The second one does not imply anything, just that what is, is. In taking life as it is, we are closer to truth, and we can more easily access how to deal with this truth.

When they say "You make your own destiny", that means there is no path to find. You are dealt with a set of random cards time and again, and for every round, you choose. You can either choose carefully, knowingly, choosing as your heart desires, or you can play the whole game thinking the book of fate tells you all the answers, leaving you to second guess your choices endlessly.

Here are the facts:

1. You can't control everything.
2. Neither can anybody else.
3. But everyone can control something. No matter how it looks, you have ways available to you right now to at least steer towards the right direction.

And sometimes, that is all you need to do good in this world.

Why "doing what you love" isn't just self-indulgence

There recently had been backlash towards the "Do What You Love" philosophy, the way of thinking that promotes pursuing your passion instead of financial pursuits or prestige. This way of thinking had been deemed classist and inconsiderate of people who simply cannot live day to day without juggling three jobs to make ends meet, or people who are locked down in their jobs because of loan debt or other crises, among others.

For the most part, I agree. The backlash, as I understand it, targets people who offhandedly attempt to suggest that doing what you love is possible for anyone, and people who don't do what they love are somehow wrong or at fault for having the lives that they do. This is not true at all - it is short-sighted and simply obnoxious to try and prescribe this to everyone and anyone who is unhappy without looking at their particular situation. 

However, for people who do have the ability to choose, I do think that there are colossal merits to trying to pursue this ideal. I feel that too many people feel as if pursuing their passions is somehow self-indulgent, just because not everyone else is given the same opportunity as they are.

I think this way of thinking helps those people just as much as eating all of the food on your plate when you were a child helps all the starving children in the world...

Hint: it does not...

It just makes you guilty, and possibly nauseous.

“I really believe that the world needs more people working on things they love.” 

-Arriane Serafico

When we do something that we love, we simply have more spirit fuel to try and do this thing in the best way we can, and for longer. And we are more likely to be spiritually awake when we do things we love rather than when we do things we feel obliged to do that we dislike. When I say spiritually awake, I mean that state of genuine engagement with your work where you are more likely to think creatively, to think of the moral implications of the work you put out, to feel involved in this work, and to feel like it is something you will be proud of putting forth into the world, when you're at the end of your life. Instead of feeling like a passive cog or gear in a machine that you have no real control over.

Disclaimer: When I say love, I don't mean simple enjoyment, which can fade after your calling becomes your job or when the going gets tough. I mean love as in fierce love - when you believe in your heart of hearts in the value of something, and you treasure it no matter what; much like the love we have for people in our lives.

Of course, it is possible as the intelligent and dynamic beings that we are, to simply choose to have this mindset, to be spiritually awake, in whatever it is that we are already doing. So if you're in a particular occupation or field right now that you don't really particularly despise, but you wouldn't say that it has really been "what you always wanted to do" either, if you're somewhere in between, then give passion a real shot in whatever it is! Get obsessed with it. Learn more about it. Try to see if you can be more passionate in whatever it is that you do everyday, and heighten the experience! And if you are already in there but have lost your passion, try to get it back. Remember, it goes both ways: Do what you love, love what you do.

But if you are, like me, at a place in your life where you're just about to choose what it is that you'll be doing, give yourself a favor and truly consider work that will make this passion occur spontaneously. Skip a step. Get to that place where you can be passionate and therefore make better work that much quicker. It will not only be a favor to you in this way, but clearly, through playing to your passions, (which would then through sheer force of love and will, be your strengths) a favor to whoever it is you would be serving through your work. 

Here is a video from The School of Life (a recent gem I discovered!) that attempts to guide one in one's pursuit of finding fulfilling work. I'm in the process of applying this advice myself, and found it very refreshing and comforting, so I want to share it with you, because I'm grateful that you're here reading my blog, which is currently where my passion is. Haha!

Hope to see you again here soon.

Inside Out and how Empathy lets Joy "Grow Up" (and its parallelisms with Hector and the Search for Happiness)

*slight spoiler warning*

Inside Out reminds me of Hector and the Search for Happiness.

In this film, Simon Pegg's character Hector starts out pretty unhappy even though he is quite well off. He feels very meh about his very comfortable, "tidy" life. He is a psychiatrist and he listens to his clients' stories with emotional detachment. He tries to find meaning in his life and goes traveling, being the privileged individual who can afford it that he is.

I highly recommend this film for good vibes, by the way.

There is a moment in this film that keeps coming back to Hector, when he finds himself under Tibetan prayer flags, and he hears a voice saying that it takes all of the different colors. It takes all colors.

In Inside Out, this concept is illustrated through the five emotions in Riley's head. At first, it seems as though Joy is the only positive, functional emotion. I'll try not to spoil Hector, but at the end of both movies, the lesson is clear: processing, or working with the other seemingly negative emotions is the way to sustain Joy's functionality. We should not suppress "negative" things, but deal with them and let them allow us to empathise with each other, so that happiness can have meaning. 

As children, for us who are privileged enough in terms of where we live, our world is kept small and simple. At this stage, it is easy and natural for Joy to be the only emotion we come across often. But as we grow up, our world becomes bigger. We are made to deal with a lot of uncomfortable changes in our own lives, and we see the state of the rest of humanity. We also hopefully start to understand other people better, and we are pressured more to take other peoples' feelings into account. A lot of people cannot choose to live without these negative feelings as a result of their life's circumstances, or mental/psychological capabilities, or the experiences they've had.

Even though Inside Out and Hector demonstrate the same concept in very different life stages, both stories put Joy in charge, and allow her to work with the others. Joy is in charge, because it motivates us to keep going on so that we can make things better.

 Both stories attempt to teach the lesson that a meaningful life, one we can be happy to look back on, requires us to be open to all emotions and not suppress pain and discomfort when they come. Processing and going through all of them together, "all the colors", and not clinging too much to joy and comfort so much that it loses all meaning. 

Joy in itself is a dead end, if we don't put it in context with the other emotions. We need to use joy to propel us to ease each others' pain, and our own.. But only after we open our eyes and hearts to find out where that pain is.

Movie Rating: 4 STARS. Really cool, but makes me really want a sequel to feel like it's enough.

Two-faced Hope

Each day is like a bite-sized summary of how my life has been as a whole (at least, so far). I entered this world with my eyes full of stars, with my head held high. My conviction and confidence clear and solid and easy to see. But that was back when the world around it was still hazy, and I understood little. A hazy, misty, blissful, blue dawn. I was a streak of black ink; brazen, bold, standing out. But the background doesn't stay hazy for very long in anyone's life.

We start learning things; seeing the world around us. How big it is, how small we are.. How little we can change. What's worse, it becomes clear how hard it is to stay in control as we grow up and build habits, good and bad. And how much of living can become automatic and prescribed and inauthentic.

 The world is coming clearer to me in streaks. A sunset so full of color and vibrancy. My voice, once so strong, turns into an uneasy whisper. My hopes become like smoke, dull among the brightness of all life. 

They say happiness is all about managed expectations. And my hopes were too high yet empty. I dreamt of ziplines so high that where I am now, starting from the ground to make mounds from the ground to step on instead, seems so unexciting. But mounds of dirt can make hills, and maybe even mountains someday. Mounds of dirt are what makes ziplines even possible.

I was too sure in my blindness, too complacent in that hazy view, that now that things are clearer, the vibrancy of the vast sky brings me fear. I don't want to be afraid. Instead of being weak and quiet smoke, I want to become a cloud. To ride the sunset and to be a part of the vibrancy itself.

Relish the Highs, Respect the Lows

I've stopped trying to fool myself.

I mean that in many ways, but let's just stick to this one thing for now:

Planning a day to the hour rarely works for me, and if anything, that type of planning just ends up being another procrastination medium. The worst kind: a kind that both gives the illusion of productivity and puts more things onto future-me's plate, which, as you probably guessed.. happens to be just me when I wake up in the morning.

So I'm trying another approach. One that doesn't neglect an idea that has been gaining momentum lately, and one I've known to be true: managing one's energy is more efficient than just managing one's time. One that takes into account the natural ebb and flow of energy that is unique to how a person is as an individual, and is therefore easier to follow, and as a result, less discouraging.

To relish the highs, and to respect the lows.

Relish the Highs

This first part is a bit hard for me to do because I've been used to a really slow-paced lifestyle. It basically means: Make the most out of times where you feel like doing something, when you feel inspired, motivated, and energetic. I'm the type of person who tends to over-think everything, so instead of taking advantage of energy jolts, I tend to use it to micromanage every single detail, and it ends up depleting me before I even get to the meat of the activity! Relishing the highs, for me, means to just GET TO IT, don't think too much, make the most out of the limited resources if they are available right now. You can always keep things as a draft, and edit later.

It also means to schedule creating during times where the particular type of energy or focus needed for the task is available. A few months ago, I tried to evaluate my different kinds of energy and focus levels at different times of the day. When am I likely to find it easy to focus on creative tasks like writing or drawing? On repetitive, passive tasks like games, chores, and coloring? I figured it out, but what I failed to do was to "show up", sit myself down, and actually make something during those times. It's partly due to my schedule, but it's mostly because I tend to work in circles and keep saving things for later because I have this character flaw where I can't start if I don't have all the things-to-know down! (And even when I do, I usually become too tired to start right then after planning so much, then I save it for tomorrow, then tomorrow I'm not in the mood anymore! Woohoo!) I'm sure there's wiggle-room there that I neglected. So I'm going to have to start really going at that now.

Respect the Lows

At the same time, there are times of the day, or even unpredictable, random moments where I just can't be bothered to do much. Or I can't do a particular kind of task well. They're not impossible, but they will take a lot more effort and need more time-consuming revising because they were done with a hazy mental state.

During these times where forcing myself would just be inefficient, I try to take care of myself, or to do other kinds of things more compatible to my current disposition. This part is getting easier for me to do. That seems like it is to be expected since I'm a lazy potato and all, but actually, even while I am being very relaxed and slow-paced, I'm mentally not really at rest. I usually am ridden with guilt and anxiety (just ask my boyfriend!). But I've started to learn to forgive myself. And when I tell myself "It's okay, just try again later." I'm more likely to get back up and try again, rather than when I get really mean and annoyingly insistent towards myself.

Sometimes I just have to give myself space. And before you write that off as me just having an undiagnosed Multiple Personality Disorder, think about how much time you spend alone. Do you stop thinking about anything at all when there's no one to talk to? Of course you don't. And every thought you have inside is a conversation with yourself. The way you think about things, and the way you think about yourself has the power to encourage you to keep going, or to make you feel so bad that you give up. That last one still happens to me a lot, so I'm not here to say I've got it all figured out. Rather, I just want to remind myself, and in turn whoever reads this, that we have to be kinder to ourselves! We shouldn't talk so much shit about ourselves to ourselves that we start to believe it!

These kinds of slow times (or even days) are a good time to do the things that people forget about when they're too busy. People tend to forget to do the simple things that are quite important, like rest, drinking water, managing anxiety, or sleep. It's nice to be able to be in tune with yourself, and try to use the naturally slow and steady moods you have to do slow and steady (but still important) tasks like these.

I know these things might not apply the same way to most people, because most people don't really have their own time in their hands. But even in a rigorous scheduled setting, one can find pockets of time that they can control. If you're feeling low during a busy day, it's good to take a breather every now and then, and to see if there are other tasks that are better suited to your current state that you'd otherwise just neglect but would make your life healthier or make your work easier.



In the end, it's all about staying connected and in tune with ourselves as much as we can. Change must come from a place of self-awareness. Nobody ever got anywhere coming from somewhere they've never even been. (Let that sink in for a bit. I needed a moment when I wrote it down, too, haha.) You have to meet yourself where you are right now and work your way to where you want to be from there.

How can you say you really love someone when you don't even take the time to know them? Don't worry, I didn't get derailed there. I just want to point out that this is how self-love works, too.

You have to know yourself to be able to say you love yourself.

You have to know when you're up, and when you're down to know what you can put yourself through. We do it for our loved ones all the time. We won't nag someone we love for putting a wet towel on the bed when we know they've had a bad day. At least, not if we really want things to be okay. Why shouldn't we be that graceful to ourselves too?

Take care of yourself. Relish your highs, and respect your lows.

There IS time: It's called "Now".

I'm quite a fan of motivational phrases. To me it feels like the universe is communicating with me when I randomly see one that I somehow particularly need at that time. But when the phrase comes to me spontaneously out of nowhere, it's a totally different experience.

It's purrfect for me because I usually flee because I feel like I haven't got enough time. So I waste time I DO still have. Sounds p.obvious but I respect how sometimes things should be said in a particular way in order to be absorbed by different  people. This is the right mix of encouraging, calming, and motivating.

The stubborn body. (State of body + State of Mind = State of Being.)

What is "state of being"?

To me, put simply, it is our state of body and our state of mind put together. Whatever the result is, that is our state of being. It's not quite as mathematical as that, as Being is often the space between objects instead of the objects themselves, and immeasurable, but in terms of becoming and self-actualization, (a regular b as in being instead of a capital B Being) there lies what I think the trick is to achieving what we crave to feel that we "are". To (after getting to the right state of mind) put the state of body in tune with our state of mind.

Personally, this is my greatest battle. Often I feel like instead of being me, a one whole me, I am a mind and a body.

My mind often feels like a ghost waiting to occupy a cooperative shell. A creative, hopeful, starryeyed ghost, floating around, getting ideas, being excited, but with nothing physical to show.

My body is a separate vessel, containing the mind instead of being fused to it. Acting like a cell instead of an instrument sometimes.

When my mind is excited, my body sits down, but then it gets too warm, or hungry, or it sees something and goes autopilot and gratifies itself with games, series, music, what have you.

My body needs to be tamed. It doesn't mean me any harm. It only is what it is. What I need to do is to train it. And I've been trying. I want to be in control. I want impulses to come from a higher, more creative awareness.

 I need to ignore distraction, get into the root, ask my mind what needs to be done. Then I should give my body a specific action. And I need to keep following that, and should I stray (which I will sometimes. Makes life fun)  My body shall be trained to remember what the mind wanted in the first place. In this way the mind will be its rider. It will be the mind's vehicle. The horse walks, but the rider decides where to go. That kinda thing.

But of course, cars need tuning, horses need water and food and rest, all that stuff. Meaning, I will attend to my body's discomfort first should there be any, so that it can focus on the mind's will afterwards. BUT I should stop letting it take advantage of that. Usually when I comfort myself, I get carried away. Then nothing gets done. I should stay alert, attentive, to the needs of both my body and mind/soul.

It's playtime. :)

It's somehow became a trend in everything I read lately: what people regret when they're dying. It showed up in the book I just read, It showed up blogposts and facebook newsfeed updates. All from different people. We are mortal beings. We will die someday. What we have here in front of us, the Now, is all we have at any given time. And one day we won't be conscious of it anymore. We will become unconscious earth matter again. Wasting time is a greater sin than wasting electricity, money, water, anything at all.

Something happened in first period made me disappointed in myself today. It made it so clear how I've let many things that are so near to me slip by. But I'd dare say that actually feeling disappointed by something like that is a HUGE improvement on my part. Because I see now, clearly, how things can be really better. Why it's important to try. Why it's not a big waste of energy. I see that picture in my head, I see what I'm missing. And it all came to me before it's too late.

I feel my higher Self calling out to me, telling me it's time for another paradigm shift.. (I hear Scott Pilgrim in my head: "One of your famous paradigm shifts?")

When I came home, I was so set on making things right. I had a flash of a magical feeling of presence during third period while watching a documentary about Global Warming and I was planning to use it to its full potential. But somehow the afternoon turned into playtime with my nieces. First I was teaching my 8-y/o niece new french words (she likes making me teach her some french that I learn from class) and my 3-y/o niece kept piping in and so I let her join us. Then it turned into a wonderful wonderful time. We practiced handshakes, little tickling rhymes, and other games. Then we pretended to be animals. I was so fully immersed in these activities, fully going for it, ignoring whatever it was in my head that was making me a bit embarrassed about how silly I was being. The distinction between the adult and the children disappeared. All that was left were three children, just one "leading" with more experience and knowledge under her belt. But all of the things we were doing were not below me at all. We were equals.

It's time to look at independent life as one huge playground.

Why? I just put some things together, very recent things (as if the universe was singing me a song), and it all made sense:

1. It's useless to aim for "adultness". Because what is an adult anyway? Weren't we all kids at some point? What makes a kid any less of a human being than a fully grown human being apart from the fact that a child is new and has less responsibilities? I've always felt insecure about the fact that I feel like I'm stuck in a really childlike mindset. This has caused a lot of fear and resistance on my part. But I've now come to terms with the fact that there's nothing wrong with feeling like a kid having adult experiences. That maybe it's not me being a child. It's just who I really am, and that's okay. A person is a person is a person. I should apply the respect I have for children (trying to talk to them as equals instead of manipulating them with my advantages in practical knowledge and experience) to my own self. I am me no matter what age I am and I don't need to act in a way that isn't me.
2. Playtime creates REAL dreams, goals, aims, personalities. I know that treating life like it's playtime and to not take it seriously seems irresponsible. But when I really think about it, when I used to play games as a kid, when I pretended I was a doctor, a mom, a talented violin player, in my head, it was pretty darn serious business. It felt important. It was just pretend, but I really lived and was present in those "characters" much more than I ever have been in my real adult life so far. Playtime generates REAL, USABLE LIFE ENERGY. And if I employ the same enthusiasm and presence to my life now, there will be far more resistance and more enjoyment in every step I take.
3. It's all about self-validation. If this is what works for me, then I should use it! Awakening the child in me shakes off A LOT of the inhibition. It feels good being able to let go of all my preconceptions about how I should act. Or how I need to do things. Nobody else really knows what they're doing anyway.

Isn't this a more exciting concept anyway? Being a kid doing adult stuff? Having fun, doing what you want, but also KNOWING what you're doing and having the liberty to decide?

I agree. It definitely is. And if immersing myself in this paradigm shift is really all it takes for me to make the most of the time I've got left than isn't that just a classic case of "Back to Basics"? Ah well. I never would have really understood its importance the easy way.

Note to Self V.1 (the PLASM troubleshooting technique)

Dear B,

You are such a scatterbrain. I understand though that when you feel drained, you find it easier to go on autopilot. For example, whenever you've just come home from school and are looking for something, you often open every zipper and look everywhere "instinctively" instead of just taking a moment to think about where it is and taking it. This is bad because you lose more time and energy by doing this. Your brain doesn't necessarily wear your body out if you think a little bit more about things, in fact your brain will thank you for the much needed exercise. Face it, you're past 20 and it's not getting any younger. Remember that episode on Discovery or Nat Geo about brain plasticity? You're not a kid anymore. Your child prodigy days are over and you slacked off towards the end. It's high bleepin' time you made up for that, which you already know, but have a hard time doing something about.

You need something that's easy to absorb and digest to keep you on track. I know how you've been reading lots of books and articles to help yourself, but you have NO WILLPOWER WHATSOEVER and when you're in that autopilot vegetable state, there's little hope for comprehension of any long-winded statement or wisdom nugget to put you back on track. You just do what you do when you do what you do. (QED, you use that statement a lot. More than you should.)

Well, we (you and me, which is.. really just me :c) deviced a five-step, single-word "mantra" for you to remember. A whole method condensed into bite-sized words, aimed to make functionality more accessible to you. Or us. Or me. (:c)

Oh, and look! I just wrote them down right now and realized that the five initials of the words actually form the word "Plasm". (kind of nothing short of perfect I guess for brain-exercising and retention of plasticity cos according to this, "plasm", coming from the word "plasma", means "to mold" in latin.) I actually thought of this a while ago, just the main germ of it, though. You already know this, cos you were there too, but well in case your/our/my(that sounds crazy) memory needs refreshing:

I was in the middle of an autopilot fit, and much worse, I was already aware of it and panicking. When this happens I usually end up talking to myself. And I did. I heard myself say "OKAY, SHUSH. Stop. Aim. Fire." as if I was talking about shooting targets. First I thought: "Bea get a grip wtf are you talking about you sound crazy etc etc etc." Then I realized that in a way, it wasn't so crazy. I was shooting items off of to-do lists. I suddenly realized the hidden wisdom behind the word Troubleshooting (okay, it was probably not hidden at all, but well, as life has taught me many times, to learn on the think-level is different from learning on the do-level). 

Now B, here are the complete steps of your new mantra(I HOPE YOU USE IT):

1. Pause. Stop yourself dead on your tracks the second you observe yourself going on autopilot. It's hard to take action right away when you're at it, so your first step is achieving non-action. Be still. When you realise you're going the wrong way you have to stop before you turn back. Stop, relax, recollect yourself. But only for a second. Once you're there,
2. Look. Observe the problem or situation ahead. What are you doing exactly? Where are you in the process? What is its significance? What's the problem? What needs solving? What is your goal? Imagine it clearly and
3. Aim. What should you be doing to get there? Where do you need to go? Begin with the end in mind. Plan the steps. For a big project, plot your save points. Build a map of action. This is where "work smart, not hard" comes in. It doesn't matter how many bullets you get off if they're all aimless. Don't waste your ammo. Be precise. Try to make every action count.
4. Shoot. Put your plans and ideas into action. Always the step you miss, but your chances are higher when you combine it with the rest of this method. Just DO THE WORK.
5. Maintain. Do it again. Make it a habit. This is your biggest problem area so far. You do it right the first few times, but you don't keep at it. Don't stop shooting until the zombie is dead. Then start shooting the next upcoming zombie. This step makes this whole method come full circle. This step reminds you that you can, and must keep going. This tells you, after you become productive, to stay productive. This is the clasp that keeps the bracelet from falling off. This is th-you probably get it by now. 

Again: Pause, Look, Aim, Shoot, Maintain. I hate to be so anal about it, but to change stubborn people like you takes a lot of creativity.