TIL - Examinations

It's been 4 years since I left school and entered the working world. Or the real world. I'm not even working, more of like managing things? And I'm still learning from my dad and siblings and relatives. Like I said once in a previous post a few years ago, life after school still feels like a school.

In school, we can all expect a major examinations once every semester, and not so major ones every three months. And once we finish these exams, we can enjoy a break. Sometimes we still have assignments on the breaks but well still manageable. But in life, we don't know when we are going to sit for an exam. Sometimes once every three months, then in a month's time, or in a week's time!

And in school we have teachers who helped us and guided us through our journey as we work hard towards our exams. And after the exams, we are also graded to see how well we did. In life there are "physical" teachers who are present to help and guide us. But sometimes, there aren't. Experiences taught us to be a better person. And in life, how are we graded? How do we know if we do well or not?

My dad always says, whether you did something right or wrong, just see how smooth-sailing your life is. Like the things you did and the things you did to other people, if you ended up getting something rough in return, then you're probably doing something wrong. Kind of like karma.

There are a lot of times when I meet people who are unsure of what they are doing in life. And even if they do, they are still unsure if they're doing it right. Sometimes I ask myself the same question too. For me, who works in agriculture, I have no choice but to wait for three months to see results. Cause I got to see if things work or not. How well my flowers grow etc. In other fields, the results will be faster. Sometimes you just have to wait, cause life will definitely give the answer to you.

So yeah I think that's the biggest difference that I felt after leaving school. And life after that. I don't seem to get a break. There's no "holiday" to look forward to. Although it sounds sad, there are times where it feels exciting. The idea that anything can happen and how dynamic life is. Well always take good breaks. But always remember that life is a school itself. We all learn. Until we die.

Can't believe October is here tomorrow! Yup, like I always believe, when you step into September, the year will just go by even more quickly haha. Well hope September has been treating you well. Let's end off 2017 is a grand and sweet way. Here wishing you a wonderful October ahead! :)

Circle of Life

 

So yesterday, my dad had a muscle cramp on his waist and it was pretty painful. In fact it was so painful that he spent the evening laying on the bed because he couldn't move too much, and that it hurt when he walks. So I spent the evening doing calculations by myself and also taking care of him, putting some hot compress on his waist, and basically doing his usual routine while he's resting.

It dawned upon me how much my parents have grown old. Well they're not -that- old but age is basically catching up on them. Body aches became a routine for them, and evidently, it takes longer for them to recover from flu etc. Which usually takes a shorter time, as long as I can remember.

Well no one can escape from the force of time. We will grow old eventually too. It's just pretty bittersweet to see this happening right now. I mean yes I spent most of my time with my dad and my parents. I've been cooking/heating up dinners for them and so on. I also realised how I've been holding them as they walk and I become wary when the floor is slippery, when the weather is cold etc.

Which reminds me - that all of these worries are the worries that my parents used to have when I was small! Or actually even until now haha. Which then brings me to a thought:

"One day our parents will become our children"

I realise how much I've been nagging at my parents, instead of the other way round (no actually my mum still occasionally nags at me too haha). Simple things like reminding my dad to wear jacket when we're going out (cause the weather is pretty chilly these days). Reminding my mum not to eat too much spicy food cause it'll give her gastric. Warning my dad that the floor is slippery, holding his hands as we're walking. Closing the window when my mum is sleeping cause it can be cold, and so on.

All of these, are things that my mum always nag at me when I was young (or till now). 

So in one way or another, we'll come back to where we begin. It's really the circle of life I guess? Or it's just the idea that we are repaying the deeds of our parents, as they took care of us when we were young. One day our parents will become our children. The question is, 

can we treat them as our children, like how they treated us as theirs?

Oh yes PS: My dad's doing much better today.

TIL - 24 Hours

One of the things that made me feel annoyed the most is... When I have to involuntarily waste my time hahaha. Or when things don't go to my way. Well actually come to think of it, nothing will ever go your way. Most of the time, we are the ones that create our own paths. Always remember, nothing is in control! As Timber Hawkeye says in his book Buddhist Bootcamp heh.

Okay so what happened is this. Wednesdays have always been a busy day of the week for me. I have delivery to settle and so on. Last Wednesday was especially busy, because I had to meet a few people. We made a schedule for the meetup at 4 PM. And so I was planning in my head about how my Wednesday will go. And I was hoping (of course) that everything will go smoothly. Because I was meeting someone else at 5. And I hate making people wait, especially when they don't have to.

However, this person came really late. To be exact, 1.5 hours late. He came at 5.30 and I have no idea why. Because of this non-punctuality, everything got ruined because before his schedule, there are a few other people who were meeting us. And hence, all the schedule are being pushed away. I ended up leaving for the farm at 6 plus, reaching there at 7-ish. So yeah, when I was supposed to meet someone at 5, I ended up meeting him at 7. I was so angry urgh. Cause all of these wouldn't have to happen if someone learns to be punctual. I was trying hard to keep cool as I was driving ommmmm.

Okay I'm not an interrogator who went ahead to interview him why he's late and so on. I brushed it off and just went ahead with my day, feeling rather annoyed though. Maybe he has something cropped up at the last minute. No one knows right. But yes this is where I don't like it - because I ended up wasting my time, when I didn't have to actually do so! But I will always remind myself, nothing is in control.

Last year I have learned to redefine my definition of living life to the fullest. I have decided to do so by living my day to the fullest. Each day. I want to live the 24 hours of my day to the fullest. I want to do work when I have to. I want to rest when I am resting. I want to savour every food that I am eating. I want to mindfully waste my time when I decided to. Get what I mean?

So yes when I have to "sacrifice" my time when I don't have to, caused by an external factor, I feel rather annoyed. Maybe I need to learn how to also live my "involuntarily wasted time" to the fullest. 

That's all for this month's TIL. Live your life to the fullest people. You only have 24 hours in a day, and you only have one life to live. Don't waste them away!

TIL - Stopping Time

Okay back on this month's TIL! Need to go back on track baby. Anyway I'm going to combine err April's and May's TIL because they're kind of in the same track? It's about time. It's about living in the present (which I was talking about in the previous post). So yeah, here goes!

Have you ever had those moments where you stare at your calendar, or you come to a realisation that like "Oh it's Friday already?" or like "OMG it's June tomorrow!" and so on. Basically you lost track of time and realised how each week/month/year is passing so quickly. At times you wish for it to slow down but as you grow up, you realise that it will never slow down but does the opposite.

It speeds up. Somehow.

I suppose we're all getting busier as we grow older. Work caught us up, life caught us up and so on. I realise with each passing year, every week passes really really quickly. It has become a norm for me to realise that I'm in Friday when it feels like yesterday when the week has just started. I am no longer sort of "surprised" to see how fast time is flying. Like oh it's Friday. Okay. Oh it's Monday tomorrow.

One of my favourite words from John Koenig Dictionary of Obscure Sorrow is "Zenosyne", which is the sense that time keeps on going faster. And one of the phrases in the video goes like "when we were young, we got so used to living in the present because we have nowhere else to go". Which is very true. As we grow up our days are filled with more things. And then so do our weeks, months, years, and so on. We have more "places" to go and visit to every day. And we lose track of time.

And with this, I realised one thing. We should all stop wishing for time to slow down, or hasten up. We should go along with it. And ride on its river flow. That's what I've been doing these days. I make sure I get to do whatever I need to do on the day. On the week, and so on. I feel accomplished whenever I do all of my tasks and well at the end of the day, all I can do is breathe a sigh of relief.

Stop wishing for time to slow down. We are all here now. This is a beautiful place that we get to visit only once. There's no way but up, no other way but forward. So lets go everyone.

TIL - Holding On

It's the first of May today which means it's... May Day May Day. Okay that was pretty lame. But yes it's a holiday here as well and it was a pretty much chill day for me! Had some guests coming over and that's about all. It's the end of the three consecutive long weekends. Whew.

Okay I just realised that I didn't do my TIL series in March... And I think I should stop that habit. So I'm gonna do two TILs, one for March and one for April. And May at the end of this month. I have 30 more days to go mwahaha. Hmm it's a very short and simple one actually.

In March, I learned something about hope. To be more exact, not losing it. I've always believed that the only thing you should hold on tightly to in life is hope. Just the thought that things will change for the better. The thought that things will happen the way you want them to be. It is infuriating, I know, to hold on to something when things don't seem the way they are going for you.

It's like driving against the current. You're struggling and it feels good to think how life will be much easier to just let everything go and let the current drag you away to the unknown. But it's quite scary too when you think about it, because you don't know where the current will take you.

2016 was pretty tough. But somehow everything unraveled into a beautiful epilogue in March. Out of the sudden, out of the blue. Nothing prepares us for this, and it truly felt like the universe has planned everything for us. Despite us feeling pretty frantic and worried most of 2016. 

I read a lot about depression stories. How lots and lots of people committed suicide, or attempted them, because they feel that things are not getting better and better. So they decided to end everything once and for all. 2016 felt like that for me. And then they share about how people around them are encouraging to hold on and to have faith. But depression is depression. It's a voice from the inside that really fucks everything up. It's how much you resist these voices, to hope for the better.

Faith is a funny thing. It's like the sun shining bright, but as long as there is the sun, and there is you, a shadow will be cast. Wherever you go, it will follow. I think it's human nature. But if the light gets brighter, the shadow will disappear. It's really how much you can make this light shine brighter than the shadows we cast. Okay hmm am I making any sense actually hahaha.

Well yeah, it can get pretty tiring. But please, don't lose hope. Life will always find a way.

TIL: Purpose

Last day of the month, another reflection post about things I've learned!

So a few weeks ago, I was just pondering about how different life's definitions are after you left school. For example things like our goals, dreams, "living life to the fullest" and so on. If you're doing what you're doing in school, perhaps they are still kind of the same. Although I'm pretty sure it's not identical. In fact I think at different stages of our lives, these definitions keep on changing. Because they are impermanent. They don't stay the same forever, right? But something is missing for me.

To be honest I don't know what my goals and dreams are now heh. Like perhaps I have learned to live in the moment? So I no longer bother to think about how I want my life to be in the next couple of years. Also I've learned how ever-changing and how drastic life is flowing. I have decided to live life for today. To see what I can do today, tomorrow, next week, next month and so on. 

My mind hasn't and can't sail that far into the future.

Another thing is that I feel in school our goals are more "reachable". Just to give an example, back in school I was just so focused to get good grades so that I can move on to the next semester in peace (keyword: GPA). I'll work hard to do well in exams, to get good grades for my reports/projects and so on. Once I've done that, okay, I'll move on to the next semester. And it goes on.

Perhaps I have other goals too like I want to run some 10K races and I plan my training schedule. I want to travel here and there, do this and that. Goals are kinda attainable easily because I feel like I have the time to work towards them, and it feels like I'm walking on this "paved road".

Not saying that the road I'm walking now isn't paved. They are paved but in a different and crazy kind of paving hah. It can change a lot, and change suddenly. So I feel that instead of worrying about not having my goals attained due to sudden "changes", I decided to plan what I can do here, now.

But in life there's something greater than these goals and dreams - it's a purpose. 

Something is greater than traveling around the globe. Something is bigger than the huge-ass dream house we dream about. Something is more expensive than that thing we've been wanting to own. Purpose. I remember seeing that vein-diagram picture about how our purpose is defined as the intersection of four things: the thing we love doing, the thing we're good at, the thing that the world needs and that which we can be paid for. When you think about it, it's so difficult to find the answer!

In fact now I don't know what's my purpose in life. And I think it's dangerous because our purpose keeps us going. It is something that makes us happy to go to bed, and wake up the next day because we're doing it. We don't feel obliged to do it and we look forward to do it every single day. I think it's bigger than passion, because it really keeps us "alive". I think passion is part of our purpose.

Sometimes I feel that I should find my purpose. But finding it is never easy, and it can never be rushed. Some people find it in the middle of their lives, some at the beginning and some at the end. It's like a fine-aged wine. There'll be a time when it's ready to be savoured.

So yeah back to my original point, so far I've been living my life as of today. Seeing what I can do today and in the near future to accomplish my task and "goals". Be it making things better, finishing things and so on. Perhaps while I'm doing this, I'll find my purpose. Oh well, here goes!

TIL: Happiness

 You will find happiness 

when you discovered that it is nowhere to be found

It's the last day on January! Whew. Today was quite a tiring day for me cause I went to Jakarta with my brother in law to fetch his mum who came all the way from Ukraine! Well she wanna see her grandson of course so yup, so awed for her to make such a long trip down. But this isn't her first time so yeah. We left early today to go to Jakarta first because my bro in law gotta look for something.

I reached home again at 1 AM! So yeah pretty tired, but gonna post this one!

Okay I've decided to create a new post series every month called Things I Learned (TIL) which basically just talks about the things I learned in this month. Anything. Life lessons, etc and so on. Easier to talk once again at the end of the year :P I might change the name of this series along the way.

For this month is about... Happiness. Again.

I just come to a realisation that hmm happiness is such a weird thing. Like so far, the things that happened to me and so on, they taught me that I don't want to rely on happiness to make me happy. I know that sounds really absurd. Firstly, I have learned not to make it my destination or my goal. Because I know it is not there but it is something that we create. But then again, I realised even if we create it, we seem to make it difficult. We cling onto them so much that we feel "worried" if we don't.

Which is why I come to a realisation that you will find happiness when you realised that it is nowhere to be found. You will never find happiness anywhere. And once you discovered this fact, you will finally find it. It is empty, nowhere, and it's sort of non existing. I realised how much emptiness has helped me a lot last year. And seriously I don't want to have lots of happiness. I want emptiness.

It is very difficult to put into words, what I'm feeling about this. I just feel that I no longer want happiness? Because it's just such a weird thing to be honest haha. Okay I'm going to talk about this on another post. Anyway I have a couple of posts to talk about next month! So stay tuned for that :D

Sorry if I don't make sense here. I really don't know how to put it into words haha.