I'm sorry for not being good enough sometimes. I'm at a loss right now, feeling absolutely stunned and confused over everything that's going on. There are times when I feel like I'm on cloud nine, even if it's for all the wrong reasons. I don't even know whether the high that I'm on right now will ever be worth the pain in the future. I'm afraid of discovering the truth because I know that I may just end up as an utter disappointment to the people around me. Sometimes, I feel like I'm living the life of a fugitive who is constantly running away from the harsh reality of life. The questions keep popping up these days and it's getting harder to plaster a smile on my face and tell everyone that everything is okay. This mask that I'm wearing right now, it's suffocating me. Sometimes, I wonder what's the point of living when you can't be absolutely true to yourself. I'm really tired of running, but I can't bear to discover the truth as it may just break me completely.
The people around me have been really nice, but I just don't have the guts to let them enter into my life. Maybe it's because of the number of farewells/goodbyes that Ive been giving the past few years that made me lose faith in having a friend that lasts forever. Or maybe, just maybe the fact that if I let the light in, I may become a person with a different character because I'll be expecting way more from them. Maybe you are right. It's better to treat everyone now as mere colleagues because it'll just ease the pain and sorrow when you reach the point where all of us are at crossroads. We may go through shit together and become more bonded, but it might be better to keep our distance so that we won't be affected too much by the things that we'll be going through.
Honestly, hope is a dangerous game to me. It makes you cling onto something so impossible to achieve especially when you know that the odds are against you. It convinces your mind to follow your heart that'll will lead you down a path based on pure speculation and stupidity. And what hurts the most is that it'll usually bring disappointment when you've reached the end of the road. I'm sick and tired of trying to convince myself everytime that shit will get better one day, just to wait for that day when I'll realize that that day will never come. I don't wanna experience that feeling of opening up to someone else and losing that person again. Moving on has always been easy. It's the part about staying moved on that always makes it extremely difficult. It really sucks to realise that you were once close to someone who is currently like a stranger to you right now.
Maybe keeping the distance is the only way out now. Maybe it's really time to keep myself on the safe side so that I won't get hurt again.
I've been reading quite a bit lately. Can't really consider it as a lot of reading compared to most of my peers, but at least it's more than the amount that I usually read. A lot of things have been going on recently in my life, and both the events and the readings have made me realize many things or perhaps, misconceptions that I used to have in the past.
I used to think that the main task of a student, when I was one, was just to score well in my academics. Perhaps it's because of how much our society emphasizes on the importance of studies today or probably due to the fact that you'll gain that indescribable sense of pride whenever you get the highest score for whichever subject in class. And of course, in order to stand out, you had to be better than your competitors. I used to treat quizzes and exams like some sort of competition, where the winner is determined by the person who scored the highest marks. This perception during my early years didn't really grant me a lot of friends, as I would often look at my peers with animosity in my eyes. But hey, at least I made it out alive.
What I'm really trying to say is that I regret not viewing life in another perspective earlier. But who knows? I was still young and clearly oblivious to what's happening in the outside world. I regret letting many opportunities slip past just because I wanted my academics to be just fine. Looking back now, it would be good if I managed to learn a couple of things more. If only I learnt more skills/knowledge that cannot be taught inside a classroom. To be honest, I wish that I played more. I'm not talking about the computer games because I'm still playing them now, but like real sports. Could it be a sense of envy when I see many of my peers manage to dribble a ball well or at least be good in a certain sport and here I am, looking at them from the grandstand because I'm clearly too shy to demonstrate my less-than-stellar performance in sports. I've tried being more active by changing my lifestyle and trying to have an open-mind towards recreational activities but I guess that I'm kinda late.
In the past, I used to sneer at sporty people and wonder about what's the significance of 22 people on the field trying their best to snatch the ball away from each other's team when it's clearly just a ball. Perhaps that's the main reason why I decided to keep out from sports in the first place. But as I grow up, I'm starting to see a clearer picture of it right now. Sure, I used to think about how people associate sports with moral values and then gladly dismiss their remarks by associating them with bullshit. But as I grow up now, I'm starting to feel a little disconnected from the rest right now as sports really bonds people together. And being bad and shy about playing badly surely won't do much good.
Sports wasn't my only regret. There were just too many opportunities that I chose to miss out on. Chances to learn and develop new skills or even just to interact with more people. I've sacrificed many of these opportunities just for the sake of academics and computer games. Right now as I'm older and hopefully wiser, I'm starting to know much more people from the different places that I go to. And it makes me really envious whenever I meet someone who has managed to take up many of life's greatest opportunities and still manage to succeed in his/her academics.
"I cannot imagine how I will cope when I discover that my life is behind me, has already happened, and I have nothing to show for it. No treasure house of collection, no wealth of experience, no accumulated wisdom to pass on. What are we, if not an accumulation of our memories?"
Many count on memories to determine how far they have gone in life. But for me so far, I wish that I can say straight to myself that I have gone as far as I should, hoped or at least let it remain as a question unanswered. But I don't think so. To be honest, I'm starting to question what the fuck have I been doing with my life. I've faced this question before a few years back in some motivational workshop. I had answers then, like being a good son to my parents and a good friend to the people around me. I'm not saying that I've deviated from that path because I still care deeply for the people around me, but I'm starting to decipher this question in another manner now. What have I achieved so far that's worth a mention right now? To be brutally honest, I have achieved nothing that can be at least comparable to the people around me. I haven't been participating much in competitions in the past few years, much less winning them. It's like there has been a sudden void of events during the past few years of my life and it's really sad to realize that I've been seemingly wasting my life away and shutting myself out from the outside world for quite a long while.
I really hope for a change right now. But hoping for it is one thing and doing something about it is another. I've slightly more than 1.5 years to ponder it through and make my life more meaningful even though I may be restricted by my National Service commitments. Perhaps I should pick up a new skill or at least interact more with others and hopefully, make more genuine friends along the way before heading to university. But hey, maybe everything will turn out fine for me and all that I got to do right now is to stop wishing and actually do something about it.
When everything isn't yellow, will we still smile through broken glass and live in falsetto?
It's funny how I used to have these dreams of mine. Dreams of becoming something better than what I am now. Becoming the better lover. Being one of the most successful and popular celebrity in the world. Looking back at it now, it all seemed so childish. Maybe I was just a kid then, and I only knew about these big dreams without knowing what was expected of me. Don't get me wrong. I believe that there are instances when big dreams become reality for certain individuals. But I'm pretty sure that almost all of them did not start off being fed with a silver spoon. Most of them faced obstacles that seemed insurmountable. In fact, there were many others who were thrown into similar situations as them but failed due to various reasons and circumstances. Growing up made me realize that success demands hard-work and patience. There will be times when you feel like you're inching really close to your breaking point and being pushed to your limits, but it'll be worth it in the end if you decide to push on.
And this may be the ironic part after all. It feels like we're being raised in a society that teaches us that hard-work is the key in order for us to attain success. But what if it gives us an unrealistic expectation of what we want to achieve based on the amount of blood and sweat that we put in? Most of us want to pursue a successful career, have a great work-life balance and of course, enjoy retirement. I've been having a hunch that with all these expectations of ours, it makes us work harder, but prepares us lesser for the worst that has yet to come. Growing up made me realize that bigger dreams and ambitions will only lead to bigger disappointments and upsets in your life. That's why even though it may seem nice to think about what it feels like to be a successful lawyer or a doctor, it's these perceived visions of us that raises our expectations of what we want to achieve when we clearly know that there are certain conditions and circumstances that are completely uncontrolled by us. We may have the opportunity to prepare for the worst, but if we prepare for the unexpected, wouldn't the unexpected become expected, and we will still be vulnerable to the unexpected variables in life?
Maybe it's just the past experiences that I've had that made me become really pessimistic these days. I used to have those bigger dreams of mine of becoming outstanding from the rest. There have been many instances when I've been putting in lots of hard work but have been hit right in the head that I wasn't going to make it. Up till today, I still envy people who have an optimistic mindset because they're still able to see the positive side of life despite the whole load of bullshit that they have to go through. I don't think I'll ever be that kind of person again, since seeing the bright side of things only lead to bigger dreams and expectations, which will usually end up in tears and disappointment. I've learnt throughout the years that it'll be better to think negatively and try to list out the worst possible scenario and prepare hard for it. Even if nothing good comes out from anything that I do, I'll still be content because I know that I've done my best for it. And if a silver lining appears, I'll just take it as a blessing and be happy even if it's just for a little while.
Nothing lasts forever, but this is gonna take me down.
I don't know this could break my heart, or save me.
It's been a while since I really went back and see all of them together in one setting. It just feels so fictional that so many things can happen within just a few years. It's been a while since I've last seen many of them, and sometimes I really feel like I've failed as an older cousin because I am not really close to this side of the family. Being born and raised here, I feel extremely blessed to have benefitted from so many things that our dear country has given us. And even though this means that I have to sacrifice 2 years of my life to serve the country, I've always felt that this is one of the ways for me to give back to my society. To play a part in defending our country and of course, our friends and family even if it means that there will be difficult times ahead of me. Maybe it's the decision that we have made a long time ago and the distance separating us that have caused us to interact less. But I feel like I've really disappointed most of them because I was oblivious to the many events that were occuring within my extended family. Probably it was due to the fact that I didn't give two fucks about what was going on especially when my Cantonese wasn't so good as compared to the rest of my family so I feel really awkward whenever I'm with them. But sitting together on the same table made me realise that I've already become a stranger to most of them. And the worst part is, I don't even remember most of my cousins' names, let alone how they even look like. Some of them went through major surgeries and some of their immediate families met with a major family/financial crisis a few years back. But I didn't even give a single fuck when the disaster struck. Going back this time had made me question myself what have I done as a part of this family to deserve a spot in the family dinner when I have done absolutely nothing to show my care and concern for them when they are met with a crisis. Who am I to deserve that seat when I'm just a stranger to most of them.
It's really sad to know that some of them have been really unfortunate to be in certain situations that they are in right now. I've always been the stupid kid to them, since I don't really know how to interact with others well and I've always been doing badly in my academics in the past. They've always been the smart ones and my memory of them has always been that they're extremely blessed and happy. Sigh. Even the sands of time can wither the bravest and the strongest of hearts. I feel really empathetic when I heard that some of them no longer have the chance to enter a local university and get a local degree when I have the chance to do so now. It has only been a few years, and yet so much has changed.
I don't think that I am, or ever will be, a good role model for my younger cousins to look up to. We didn't even interact at all during that night, and I'm guessing that I'm becoming more and more invisible to their lives. Perhaps it's better this way, so that I won't really disrupt their lives that much since I make stupid decisions and act impulsively almost all the time. But still, it's pretty upsetting to realise that I'm much closer to my circle of friends when blood is supposed to be thicker than water. Regardless, I'm forever thankful to have people right by side everytime, even when I've hit ground bottom.
I can honestly say I am a nice and genuine person. I’m a people pleaser, which is one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I didn’t realize my importance and self-worth until one day; I woke up and said to myself, “Some people just aren’t worth it anymore.” I’m sick and tired of getting up every day living my life for other people.
I helped people who didn’t deserve my help. I tolerated people who didn’t deserve my patience. I listened to people who didn’t deserve my attention. I shared what I had to people who didn’t deserve to receive anything from me. I put up with all of this shit just to keep my so-called-friends in my life a bit longer. I’ve always thought to myself, “Be the bigger person.” I’d always say it’s okay if they’re not nice to you, as long as you’re nice to them because that’s who you really are.
I have been used, neglected, and left behind many times before. I know some of us are blinded by our own problems and issues we don’t see that they only come to us when they need something from us, but I knew it. And I still played along to their silly games. I did it because at the time, I thought I needed them more than they needed me. I felt dependent on other people. I felt like they were responsible for my happiness. So I was afraid of losing the people who mattered. I was afraid to let go of the people who I thought I couldn’t live without.
I became an illusion. I became what everyone wanted to see from me. I tried to live up to every expectation they had for me. I tried to be perfect. I tried to be what they wanted. I tried so hard to be someone they needed. But every time I tried, I ended up feeling shittier about myself. It was wrong. Everything was wrong.
Suddenly I realized I really wasn’t happy. I asked myself, “Why am I the only one trying?” and “Why I am the only one who has to adjust to others?” and “Why can’t they do the same for me?” I realized if I expected everyone to have the same heart as mine, I would end up disappointed. I realized why I did all those things in the first place despite of me being miserable. I wanted to belong. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be wanted and needed. I wanted everyone to like me. I lived for other people.
It’s about time I thought about myself. I am capable of living my life without other people trying to drag me down. I am capable of making my own decisions despite what other think. I learned that it’s okay not to be okay. It’s about time I stood up for myself. I don’t have to depend on other people to decide on my happiness. I am capable of being happy just by being content with myself. I have the strength and courage to finally get what I want. I don’t mean to say that from now on, I’m a selfish person. What I’m saying is, you also have to think of yourself.
We all have a right to choose what’s best for us. For years I’ve been bottling up every bit of emotion I had in me. But the bottle’s got to pop someday. And finally, it did. It’s time I let go of all the negativity in my life. It’s time I let go of the people who bring me pain and sadness. It’s time I trust myself with my own happiness instead of depending it on others. It’s time I finally speak out. So fuck everyone who ever made me feel the way I did before. They’re not worth it.
Sometimes you’ve just got to know the people worth fighting for, living for, and dying for. I choose the people in my life. I’m free to choose what I want to do. It’s time I let go of the days I felt afraid, worthless, and unimportant. It’s time I finally live for myself because I know my life is worth living.
"Understand that life is not a straight line. Life is not a set timeline of milestones. It is okay if you don’t finish school, get married, find a job that supports you, have a family, make money, and live comfortably all by this age, or that age. It’s okay if you do, as long as you understand that if you’re not married by 25, or a Vice President by 30 — or even happy, for that matter — the world isn’t going to condemn you. You are allowed to backtrack. You are allowed to figure out what inspires you. You are allowed time, and I think we often forget that. We choose a program right out of high school because the proper thing to do is to go straight to University. We choose a job right out of University, even if we didn’t love our program, because we just invested time into it. We go to that job every morning because we feel the need to support ourselves abundantly. We take the next step, and the next step, and the next step, thinking that we are fulfilling some checklist for life, and one day we wake up depressed. We wake up stressed out. We feel pressured and don’t know why. That is how you ruin your life.
You ruin your life by choosing the wrong person. What is it with our need to fast-track relationships? Why are we so enamored with the idea of first becoming somebody’s rather than somebodies? Trust me when I say that a love bred out of convenience, a love that blossoms from the need to sleep beside someone, a love that caters to our need for attention rather than passion, is a love that will not inspire you at 6am when you roll over and embrace it. Strive to discover foundational love, the kind of relationship that motivates you to be a better man or woman, the kind of intimacy that is rare rather than right there. “But I don’t want to be alone,” we often exclaim. Be alone. Eat alone, take yourself on dates, sleep alone. In the midst of this you will learn about yourself. You will grow, you will figure out what inspires you, you will curate your own dreams, your own beliefs, your own stunning clarity, and when you do meet the person who makes your cells dance, you will be sure of it, because you are sure of yourself. Wait for it. Please, I urge you to wait for it, to fight for it, to make an effort for it if you have already found it, because it is the most beautiful thing your heart will experience.
You ruin your life by letting your past govern it. It is common for certain things in life to happen to you. There will be heartbreak, confusion, days where you feel like you aren’t special or purposeful. There are moments that will stay with you, words that will stick. You cannot let these define you – they were simply moments, they were simply words. If you allow for every negative event in your life to outline how you view yourself, you will view the world around you negatively. You will miss out on opportunities because you didn’t get that promotion five years ago, convincing yourself that you were stupid. You will miss out on affection because you assumed your past love left you because you weren’t good enough, and now you don’t believe the man or the woman who urges you to believe you are. This is a cyclic, self-fulfilling prophecy. If you don’t allow yourself to move past what happened, what was said, what was felt, you will look at your future with that lens, and nothing will be able to breach that judgment. You will keep on justifying, reliving, and fueling a perception that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.
You ruin your life when you compare yourself to others. The amount of Instagram followers you have does not decrease or increase your value. The amount of money in your bank account will not influence your compassion, your intelligence, or your happiness. The person who has two times more possessions than you does not have double the bliss, or double the merit. We get caught up in what our friends are liking, who our significant others are following, and at the end of the day this not only ruins our lives, but it also ruins us. It creates within us this need to feel important, and in many cases we often put others down to achieve that.
You ruin your life by desensitizing yourself. We are all afraid to say too much, to feel too deeply, to let people know what they mean to us. Caring is not synonymous with crazy. Expressing to someone how special they are to you will make you vulnerable. There is no denying that. However, that is nothing to be ashamed of. There is something breathtakingly beautiful in the moments of smaller magic that occur when you strip down and are honest with those who are important to you. Let that girl know that she inspires you. Tell your mother you love her in front of your friends. Express, express, express. Open yourself up, do not harden yourself to the world, and be bold in who, and how, you love. There is courage in that.
You ruin your life by tolerating it. At the end of the day you should be excited to be alive. When you settle for anything less than what you innately desire, you destroy the possibility that lives inside of you, and in that way you cheat both yourself and the world of your potential. The next Michelangelo could be sitting behind a Macbook right now writing an invoice for paperclips, because it pays the bills, or because it is comfortable, or because he can tolerate it. Do not let this happen to you. Do not ruin your life this way. Life and work, and life and love, are not irrespective of each other. They are intrinsically linked. We have to strive to do extraordinary work, we have to strive to find extraordinary love. Only then will we tap into an extraordinarily blissful life."
This is copy and pasted from an article that i have read on the Thought Catalog.
But stay with me for a minute, I swear I'll make it worth it.
So that's it then. 8 weeks of BMT flew past just like that. It has been 8 weeks of inactivity, but there is so much to say. I remember enlisting on the 6th of May, feeling just like an ordinary civilian having no clue what is going to haopen during the first phase of my National Service life. There were many stories about how NS life would be like, but I didn't believe them. I wanted to make mine different, or at least, unique to myself. I remember taking the ferry to Tekong and enjoying the scenery on the way there,clearly oblivious to the type of life that I'm going to live with for the next 8 weeks. I remember being posted to Eagle company and that is possibly the best thing that has ever happened to me this year.
There was an opening address done by the school's Commanding Officer. It was boring yet informative. I felt the pressure and the anxiety when he announced that Eagle has been the best company for its past 3 batches. Surely, that was a whole lot of expectations placed on our shoulders right before we even started training. I remember looking around me and being barely able to find any familiar faces around me. There was a pledge, and then off we went to the cookhouse to have our farewell meals with our parents. Mine didn't say much, perhaps because they know that I'll be fine inside.
So off I went to the parade square as we bid our farewells. This was a start to a completely new chapter of my life. Since I had almost zero experience with uniformed groups, I felt a tang of nervousness because I thought that I would find it quite difficult to adapt to military life. We met our commanders and I was assigned into being part of platoon 2. It felt weird at first, because I initially didn't know anyone until I saw En Wei in the bunk.
Honestly speaking, I can't exactly list out the various events and activities that I've gone through for each day during my 8-week stay in Eagle company. Yes, there were tough moments which really tempted me to give up. But it was really through the endless encouragement and motivation from my peers and commanders that pushed me on.
In short, BMT has really given me an experience of a lifetime. I remember the anxiety I felt when I had to wait outside the live grenade range for 10 minutes with a live grenade in my vest. I remember the surge of euphoria running through my veins when I saw the grenade land on the ground and feeling the shock wave of the explosion afterwards. I remember digging my first shellscrape. It was hours of manual labour but it was well worth it. I remember the excitement on my face when my sergeants approved the dimensions of my shellscrape. I remember shooting my first blank round, and leopard crawling on the ground pretending that I was in some sort of jungle operations. I remember imagining myself as a terrorist when I had to fire blanks at my peers as I played the enemy during their training.
I remember being given my own rifle during the weapons ceremony and the load of responsibility placed on my shoulders once my platoon commander has handed it to me. I remember the very first time i shot a rifle with a live round and the target went down. I remember the times when my platoon was stuck in the jungle as the rain poured down continuously for 2 hours. We had so much fun then. I remember us making up the platoon pledge and singing songs and cheers like some crazy retards but we didn't care. I remember being certified a marksman. I remember training so hard for our UIA and drills competition and then going on to win the top prize. I remember standing in the rain for an hour during the graduation parade, waiting eagerly to throw my jockey cap.
In the blink of an eye, I have been through so much. But what makes BMT truly memorable are the friendships and brotherhood formed. Like what others before me have said, "in the many years to come, I will not remember all of this, but I'll still remember the crazy bunch of people that went through all of this with me." I'm really thankful for the platoon mates and commanders that I have. They have truly inspired and guided me into becoming a better person and hopefully, a better leader. I'll never forget the times when all of you spurred me on when I was feeling down and exhausted. I'm forever grateful for all the opportunities that you guys have given me and for the little to major influences that you've impacted me with.
I'm giving my all, but I'm not the guy you're taking home.
I am honestly feeling extremely confused right now. It feels like I'm going round in circles. To put it simply, the last 4 months have been a roller coaster ride for me. There were times when I should've made better decisions, and there were also times that brought me euphoria and satisfaction with my life. And right now, I have already made one of the most important decisions that I'll ever make in my entire life. Probably it can be said as should have, because it feels like I'm being pulled back to square one again.
For those who don't know me too well, I've always had a passion in serving others because it just makes me happy whenever I do so. Perhaps I didn't really show it to my peers whenever they needed help but thinking about it now, I was quite fucked up when I was young. I've been reckless, crazy and extremely emotional. In fact, I still am right now because I tend to over-think and over-complicate things all by myself. I know this weakness of mine and the need for me to overcome it. But when paranoia strikes, I'm an entirely different person. Perhaps it's because of these attributes of mine and my fucked up personality in the past that didn't allow me to have many friends in the past,but I'm really glad to have people who stood by my side all along. I may not have shown my gratitude explicitly to them, but I'm working on it.
Moving on, I'm really thankful to have been given many opportunities to serve the people around me in one way or another. Throughout my school experience, I've been constantly blessed with leadership positions, opportunities to do community work and internships. It has been through these experiences that further ignited the passion within me to serve. And since young, I've always wanted to be a teacher. A math teacher to be exact. I've always liked the idea of helping others to overcome a problem, and there were many problems in mathematics for all of us to solve. To be honest with myself, math has always been my strength in academics and I really, really wanted to be a math teacher from the start.
And so I have been working hard to reach this goal of mine. I would be lying if I said that I've put in 100 percent worth of effort in trying to fulfill my aspirations, but I think that the amount of work that I've put in is commendable. I've been doing consistently well in mathematics and I can feel myself inching closer to the finish line as time passed by. However, during my Junior College days, I have been exposed to the world of Economics and have developed a liking towards it too. And when I looked at the university entry criteria, I realized that it was much easier to be eligible for a Bachelor of Science (Education) degree as compared to more popular courses such as Accountancy. As I was struggling quite badly for my other subjects, I opted to aim for Accountancy instead. Because I knew that even if I couldn't make the cut for Accountancy, I could still fulfill my aspirations to become a full time teacher and inspire others. But alas, I had been blessed once again with the opportunity to pursue a degree in Accountancy in at least 2 of the local universities.
And this was when the big dilemma started to strike.
Here's a little insight about me. I'm pragmatic, impulsive and extremely emotional even though I like to serve others. I like planning stuff, and tend to think way ahead and prepare the necessary for the worst to come. I tend to look more towards logic and my brain instead of my heart because being too emotional has usually clouded my judgement in the past. And one bad part of being pragmatic is that I'm extremely calculative. I won't say that I'm living a lavish or poor lifestyle, but I always had high expectations with myself whenever it comes to food and happiness. I've always believed that there are two things in life that will stay with you wherever you go: food and knowledge. That is why I usually would be willing to spend more on food whenever I feel the urge to, and binge eating used to be one of my bad habits to tackle my stress and anxiety attacks in the past. Knowledge. Yeah, we need that to survive in the world today. But going back to the point, I don't exactly expect myself to own a car or a super big terrace house. I'm fine with living in a 5 room HDB flat and settling with hawker food (because our hawker food is seriously really good), but all this require some form of expenses too. I don't want to live the type of life that requires me to be overly concerned on how much I spend if not I'll hardly make ends meet for myself. That'll make me unhappy. I just want to settle for a happy and comfortable life.
I'm impulsive. I've made countless irrational decisions in the past because I couldn't bring myself to think through just a few seconds more whenever the stress and anxiety kicks in. Maybe it's because of this attribute that molded me into a person that plans for the future to lessen the damage fron this characteristic. But even today, I wish that I can go back in time and change many things. Because i didnt think clearly and did not react in the most appropriate manner. And this is the part of being too emotional starts to kick in. I have a huge range of emotions, and tend to show all of them from one end to another end of the spectrum frequently. And being too impulsive makes me do things based on my emotions. I know that I've been telling others not to trust their heart but their brain, but I have been having first-hand how difficult it is to heed this piece of advice.
Anyway, back to the dilemma. It was and still is a career dilemma. To become an accountant and pursue my interest in Economics and checking things or fulfill my long time aspiration to become a teacher. The main problem to this is that I've heard way too many stories that Accountants cannot be teachers. This means that I cannot change into my other desired career if I chose the other. Both careers allow me to help others and serve the community because I get to help companies and check for inefficiencies in one or inspire the next generation in the other. The universities didn't offer economics as part of the bachelor of science/arts (education) degree as well. But after days of careful deliberation, i've decided to go for Accountancy first because I did not have any passion for the sciences or arts, and I only wanted to further my interests in the statistical part of mathematics. To be honest, I was feeling really emotional from this decision because it feels really upsetting to let go of your childhood dream even when you still have the capability and means to fulfill it.
I applied for Accountancy and I got in. I got what I wanted, but it didn't feel satisfying enough. I wanted to use my results to get something more. Something like a scholarship. I do not want my parents to spend so much money on my education even when they can afford the school fees because 40 k is really a huge sum of money. I feel that the money would be better spent on their future retirement because it's their hard earned money and savings. I scored decently for my A level exams, and I wanted to get a scholarship. I've applied for many, but I haven't been receiving any good news yet. I know that this may seem a little selfish of me, but I get really jealous when people inform me that they've been shortlisted or even offered a scholarship. Don't get me wrong, I feel really happy for them. But I would feel happier if I were in their shoes too. Because right now, it seems like almost everyone around me (or at least those in my direct circle of friends) are getting opportunities for a scholarship, while I'm just sitting around praying hard that I'll be shortlisted for one. Sometimes, I feel really minute compared to others because it seem like I'm just not good enough for one. Perhaps this is true right from the start, but it really sucks to have this thought in your head with some sort of evidence to support this motion. I've received news that I should be receiving some sort of notification this week if I were to be shortlisted for one of the scholarships that I've applied for, but the chances of it happening is a little bit small right now.
And recently, I've received news that I was shortlisted for a Teaching Scholarship. This isn't like the 'shortlisted' kind that my friends have experienced because I did not even apply for it. And to think that i was shortlisted, it really feels like it's been my calling all along to teach, but I've already turned my back away from it once. Getting this email made me seriously reconsider on which career path i would like to embark on because I can feel the younger me smacking my face senselessly for turning away from being a teacher. But the biggest problem here is that I've already applied and got accepted into the School of Accountancy. Accountants cannot be teachers, and this would mean that I'll be most likely rejected from the scholarship because it's too late to change my choice now. Sigh. I can feel this opportunity slipping through the palm of my heads even though I have not really decided on whether I want to be an auditor or a teacher.
Sigh. So this has been my life so far. And yeah, I've been thinking too much recently too. I don't know whether this is a good sign or not because sometimes, the things that I've been thinking about come true. And usually during the periods of time when I don't want to. I've been training quite decently for ns i guess? Time really flies. It feels like the A levels were just yesterday, and I'm already enlisting in a few weeks time. The feeling really sucks because things will change even more when I enlist. With only two days if free time every week after my confinement, I have to set my priorities right and that means that i may lose contact with some people around me. It feels really upsetting to let go of the civillian life for the next 22 months, but I guess that is required by the country. I think that I will be fine, since there are many before me who have survived and completed their service. But I'm still anxious or even scared of what's ahead of me. I just hope that I'll make it out alive.
You don't see me standing there, I just came to say goodbye.
