What are the words you live by ,
Tuesday, December 31, 2013 | 8:03 PM
Yours truly was hoping to do a summary of her in Malaysia where she went from Muar to Malacca to Kuala Lumpur and back to Malacca and to Muar last week. But since this will be the last entry of 2013, I wanted to do a summary of this year and do a resolution for my life. Truth be told, I’ve never done a new year resolution before because I have a feeling that it’ll just be wishes I have for myself and I’ll never go out of my way to achieve them nor to remember the goals I set for myself and then fool around with the year ahead.
A guy (now no longer in my life) once told me before that everyone should have a set of guidelines/morals/principles they set for themselves to follow in life. (AKA life motto) (like how schools have core values for le kids) I was only 14 then (I think he was 6 or 7 years older?) and to answer and fu yan him, I randomly came up with a “motto” for myself at that time. I think what I was: “Work hard, play harder”. So damn cliché and lame right? Yes I’m disappointed in my 14-year-old self. (I cant remember his but I remember being impressed)
But de other day, as I was (once again) thinking about life “under the showerhead”, I finally figured a life motto for myself, that summarize what I want in my life in one word: Balance. #Bathroomphilosophy. Okays maybe mine is too short, I shall expand it: “Not to settle for too little and never ask for too much”. Basically, enough is enough. Le readers may ask, balance? Balance in what? What will define your balance and what defines your “enough”?
I guess when the word balance comes to mind, a lot pops up too, like weighing scales, equality, tightrope walker, some random physics concept about moment and gravity etc. (I’m sure other stuffs pop up in your mind, don’t shut them out, this is how we learn to be creative. Listen to yourself, develop a single thought and you’ll be amaze with what your brain can come up with (Trust yours truly!) Been there, done that.) I guess I love blogging so much because in my own space, there’s no right or wrong, it’s just... me (: Personally, I’ve always divide my life up into categories and that is where I seek to achieve my balance.
I hope that I can grow and develop myself in these three areas: Career, Character, Circle and balance out my time equally amongst them. I don’t want to turn out to be someone who only parties all day with people and in turn neglect my work and self. And I’ll loather myself if I become a workaholic/mugger (all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy) and I definitely don’t wanna focus all on self-development, self-achievement, self-centeredness till I neglect other important things in my life. This may all sound extreme now but I want a reminder for myself not to let this happen to me (thus the motto)
For my motto, I do not wish to have a priority in life, (there is no such thing as “love” comes first or friends’ matters coming before family matters) everything is equally important and I decided that I will put time aside for each area... other than next year. Much as I hate it to be, next year (my A Levels year) will decide where I will continue going in life, whether I can go for the course that I dream of, whether I can go to the university that I aim for. Although I have yet to decide on a specific job, I know that I will want to work in the service industry, working in people-orientated jobs.
So next year, my main focus will be exploring the career department in store for me (love can wait). My driving force in this area is that what I do, (my future occupation that is,) will make people happy. It’ll make people think, “hey why didn’t I think of that before!” or “hey that felt good, I shall pass it on!” And I’d like a job where I get to be creative (not that kind of artsy-creative but the solutions-creative kind). A “work” motto: “Do what you love, love what you do”. (A quote that I got from primary school)
In the character department, I sub-categories it into “Xinying” and “Teh Ah” (Yes I’m an interesting person
I don’t want to choose between being a “dreamer” and a “do-er”. “Teh Ah” will be my dreamer and “XY” will be the latter. In life, there is also the give and take. “Teh Ah” will be the giver (which is why I sign off the cards I give as “Teh Ah”) but Xinying will be the taker. Basically, “Teh Ah” will be the high-profile, optimistic, soft and “yes” side of me while Xinying will be the more serious and reserve one who decide when to say “no”. I guess I’ve to thank my friends who let this nickname: “Teh Ah” sticks and I guess it wasn’t really a mistake I made for my FB name 3 or 4 years ago. So... I guess for my introduction next time, I’ll say, “My name is Xinying but you can call me Teh Ah, an interesting thing about me is that I think that toilets are thinking havens and I love coming up with bathroom philosophy.
Family-wise, I don’t think now is the right time to share about the happenings yet and partner-side I’m still undecided about it. (Mr. Right I know you’re out there somewhere) But friends-wise, I hope I get to spend more time with these people: (never in order of favoritism)
Alicia, Charmaine, Jieyin, Shini, Chenxi, Isabelle, Amy, Christalle, Gladys, Kellie, Jiahui, Zahraa, Nurin, Jiawei, Sandy, Shumin, Enqi, Kaiwen, Brangelina, Shirley, Janice, Yiling, Fengxian, Sally, Cassandra, Xinrui, Lionel, Eugene Tang
Ambitious long list I know. But there’s a lot of them who I haven’t talk to or hang out with in the longest time ever and when I sit down to think about it, if I’ve one month of free time to spend with my friends, these are the people I crave to meet and miss hanging out with desperately. People whom I can talk to, who I have endless to talk about with, no matter how much we MIA in each other’s life. Motherly side of me feels a sudden protective feeling over these people.
P.S. Protective is not possessive.
So referring to my first paragraph, this will be my resolution for the new year (2014) and all the years ahead. To follow and abide by my life motto: “Balance – Not to settle for too little, and never ask for too much.” Hopefully, it’ll help me to grow as a person, a friend, a sister, a daughter, a student, a teammate, and eventually, a worker, a boss, a wife, a daughter-in-law, a mother and... who knows? A grandmother? For those who still don’t get what I mean by a life motto to follow, I’ve googled some examples for you: (edited by yours truly of course)
Personally though, I think (and figured) that a life motto isn’t something that you get off the internet, nor is it something about originality (who cares if 10K people out there shares the same motto as you! Though I admit it’d be cooler to have your very own) But life mottos have to be something you learnt from life yourself. At some point where it all connects to you and you got a “hallelujah” thought about what you want in life. It doesn’t matter when (I took 17 years, I think my mum still doesn’t have any) but I guess the earlier you got it, the better. BUTLife Mottos Samples
why am I doing this...?
No.1: “Where There’s a will, There’s a way.”
One of the most popular mottos which people turn to when they have to convince themselves to continue whatever that they are doing.
No.2: “Learn from yesterday; live for today; hope for tomorrow.”
All versions of this motto are cheesy. Another one being: “Yesterday is history, tomorrow, a mystery and today is a gift. Which is why it is called “the present”. Oh such punny-ness.
No.3: “If life hands you lemons, make lemonade and sell it for a profit.”
This is an overrated motto which I cannot stand. Why do we need to make lemonade? Why not just sell the lemon in the first place?? Is lemonade any sweeter than lemons…? I can add sugar syrup onto a lemon too right.
No.4: “Failure isn’t an option, it’s a choice.”
According to the thesaurus, 'choice' and 'option' are synonyms.
No.5: “If he can do IT, so can I”
... But I’m not a ‘HE’.... (if you get what I mean)
No.6: “Live, Laugh, Love”
So... what happened to eating and sleeping?! I guess for most of us we wouldn’t mind it to be “Eat and Sleep. ... And Eat.”
No.7: “Forget what hurt you, but never forget what it taught you”
Which is why they say “no pain, no gain” I guess
No.8: “Short term sacrifice, long term gain.”
I cannot put down this quote because Mr Xiong made the whole 4J’12 repeat this after him and he had this smug look which says something like: “Well! I make a very good teacher!” Which I find very amusing and hilarious till this day and I really miss his exciting classes and teachings.
No.9: “Life is about kicking ass, not kissing it.”
Well, either one will put you into jail.
No.10: “Hakuna Matata”
This one is good! 3 reasons why it makes a good life motto: 1, it is short and sweet; 2, it has a song based on it; 3, this “motto” comes from Disney!
Life is not a race, do take it slower, hear the music, before the song is over.
This is a super long post (LOL, bear with me, I wrote this out before typing it out de) but anyways, I will now (try to) summarize 2013 in words. I know at the beginning that this is a year of change as I move on from secondary school life to JC-life. I drop physics and geography to take history and economics (risk-taker is I), all of my close friends are in different classes and I entered 5F with people I’ve heard and see in school but never know personally. Not trying to be extreme but I kind of entered a class of strangers in January. Throughout the year, I slowly fell in love with the 5F peeps, 5F environment, and the subjects I’m studying. Im not trying to sound like a nerd but I really like Economics, Chemistry, History (Maths and GP being compulsory so I’ve nothing to say T.T) I think I said blogged this quite a few times already though.
In band, my last batch of seniors stepped down in the top half of the year and I became my little chicks’ (what I call my juniors in band) mother hen. (not the most responsible one I am remorseful to admit) In June to August, I volunteered in NDP 2013 and had the time of my life meeting people from all walks of life and sharpening my social skills. And the best takeaway was making 2 non-chinese friends who taught me a lot about culture sensitivity (in ways they didn’t realize). I think I’ve only 4 non-chinese friends to date: Rizal, Divya, Zahraa and Nurin. LOL. The tragedies of a Chinese-school girl... (I could count my primary school non-chinese friends but we don’t really talk now so...)
It was also in this event that I realize I cannot understand xiao di di and xiao mei mei anymore... The funny things for primary and secondary students, doesn’t sound funny to me at all... :/ Is my humor deteriorating or are kids getting more lame nowadays...? But nonetheless, it was memorable meeting people from other JCs, Polytechnics and Universities. This event was one of the highlight of my 2013 and the times passed by too fast too furious. Speaking of events in 2013, another is RVMUN but truth be told I’m looking forward to RVMUN 2014 more for now. Then come the end of year exams period where I finally decide to work hard but it was too little too late and I almost couldn’t make it to year 6. So this Dec holiday, other than catching up with my friends, I also have to catch up with my studies. Sigh. And it was this holiday where I made unexpected friendships (which I have already mentioned before) and I also grew closer to my dad and brother. All in all, it has been quite a rewarding holiday (in ways that words will not be able to express)
This won’t be a lovely post without some “love” right? This year, I also figured out a lot about love. My trust and perseverance was tested, I debated time and again with giving in and giving up. But this year, I made a motto about love too: “If I cannot accept you at your worst, then I don’t deserve you at your best. Vice versa.” If I can’t stand that you smoke, nor accept the fact that you need to, I don’t deserve to savor the delicious food that you can make. Shit happens, and if I cannot pull through it with you, then when I’m lonely or upset or loveless, I don’t have the rights to ask for your care and love. Others will say that this is like a “give and take” thing and I agree, but I believe it is more than that.
As you spend more time with someone, you learn more about them. Their likes and dislikes, their habits, their behavior, and can you accept it all? If he is very dirty, do you mind cleaning up for him? If his hygiene expectations are very high, are you willing to meet his expectations? You cannot ask someone to change for you, nor is it worth it to change yourself for one person, it’s all about acceptance. Knowing their best and their worst and coming to terms with it. ... I guess that’s true for family too. Well, that’s all from me for 2013. Happy New Years Eve guise :D
XOXO
Xinying, and occasionally Teh Ah
P.S. Favourite quote of 2013: “For none of us would have anything to live for, if we did not have something worth dying for.”
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