How my 2021 went.

If the 22 me is scared and confused, the 23 me is scared but determined. This past year has been filled with a strange mix of both losses and blessings. I was confused about my plans more than ever, and I have to let go of the idea of what I pictured my life to be. But admittedly, I learned quite a bunch, surprisingly more about myself than anything else this year. With how gloomy this year start, I’m surprised at how good and optimistic I feel about ending it. Quoting from one of my favorite artists, IU conveyed how I felt ending this year on a good note in her latest release, “Pieces”, saying, “Despite a great loss in my world, flowers were blooming, stars coming up and poems were born without delay. In between these repetitive seasons, there is ‘winter sleep’.” December is that winter sleep for me, closing this chapter of chaos and driftling in my life, to waking me up into a hopeful yet uncharted beginning.

Even though it felt like a bleak of nothingness, a lot of things actually happened in my life this year. I had my graduation ( after a year-long delay from when I technically graduated), got several rejections, landed my first job, didn’t like my first job, move to my second job that I love, surprisingly turned down some offers, finished my 70 goal TBR books ( yay), going through it with my dad’s new marriage and family( nay), lost some very precious people along the way, and broke up from a great but doomed relationship. Whew. So after everything that happened this year, I thought I owed it to myself to reflect on the things I’ve learned and the changes I went through this year to continuously grow, and as a reminder that I could look back on.

The first half of 2021 featured a prolonged feeling of loss and anger. For a long time this year, I wasn’t even aware that I felt burdened and angry, so I wasn’t able to deal with it properly. I remember I would go on with my day, work, eat and sleep with no particular excitement for living. It was genuinely hard to even get through a day and I was frustrated because I didn’t know why. Only now that I can move past it that I know the reason. I wasn’t conscious that there were a lot of things that happened in the previous year that still hurt me, and I brushed it off only to be reminded of the implications of these things and how suffocated I felt. It was also because I had no outlet to express them. It was a gradual compiled grief that I refuse to deal with that caught up on me, and forced me to start acknowledging that I feel depressed.

In “Eat a Peach”, David Chang claimed, “The question was raised of whether depression is something you can control by simply sucking it up. My answer is no, I don’t think you can overcome it with willpower, but I do believe that dealing with depression is a choice that needs to be made. You have to choose to stand up every day and keep going. To reject your default settings.” This made me think how so many people out there are doing things they don’t want to do, in jobs/ relationships, or people being sick and having to go through situations they despise, yet they still choose to get up and deal with it. We won’t know when it’ll get better, or even if it will, but the most important thing is to keep going. So the later half of 2021 was me doing exactly that. Dealing and working on being in touch with my emotions better, while accepting things for how it is and sketching a different picture for my future.

A little while after I turned 23, things started to look up, this was the time where I regain my drive to excel at things and started to apply to some jobs that helped me regain the feeling of my old self. Now as I’m writing this, I’ve reflected on how different I feel compared to how I started this year off. Sure I’m still immutably cynical, and apprehensive, and overthinking, and anxious, but I now wake up with an excitement for what’s to come. I started planning things that I’m looking forward to doing again. I would run out of space in my journal to write fun projects/ideas that I’m planning in my head. I started to appreciate more the happiness I get from little things every day, and I have this determination and drive to excel again, something that I struggled with a lot in the past but I’ve missed it dearly when I lost it. ( cringe). So in the spirit of the new year, and my road to becoming less of a pessimist more of a happier person, I thought I would recall important lessons and discoveries I’ve learned about myself that keeps me going and make this year a tiny bit easier.

1. Trust you to save you. If there is one thing that should be the default thing you always have, trust, and rely on, it must be yourself. Though it’s natural to trust other people, I learned to never trust and rely on anything more than yourself. At least in my case, I’m in a place where I can say in whatever I’m going through, I’ll get through it because I have me. You are your most loyal friend, your harshest critics, yet your biggest cheerleader. You would trust your word more than anyone else.
2. Validations are good to have, not to look for. It’s good to have people’s validations, I admit that. It’s ok to want validation from people, but it should never be the thing that motivates you. You should never identify and attach your happiness, worth, or success to other people’s validations. It’s extremely dangerous and exhausting. You can do great things in your day and it would still be fucking great with or without people’s praises. Yes, it still did happen even though no one was there to see it/ no one was there to put it on Instagram. Don’t miss out on things that are happening within your life because you were so busy focusing on how your life looks from the outside.
3. If you can’t stop overthinking, learn to control it. To be honest, you won’t stop overthinking just by telling yourself to stop. I’ve read an article that mentioned that overthinking is a response to our primitive instinct to stay alert and safe. “Even though overthinking can happen to anyone, but those who have experienced trauma or who are perfectionists can be especially vulnerable.” I think it’s because overthinking gives a false sense of control and can be a form of procrastination. In my case, what has helped to navigate my overthinking is to disengage. And I mean that in physical terms. Spending time outdoors is a huge one. There’s something about not being too inside-my-own-head by not being literally inside a building as well. It’s less claustrophobic. But maybe there’s some comfort to be found in the fact that no matter how much we think through a thing, there can still be loopholes we’ll miss. And I still don’t have a full grasp on everything. But it’s a start. Like trying to not overthink if this article perfectly articulated my thoughts.
4. Remove yourself from situations that enable you to compare to others. I’ve learned the best way to stop comparing yourself with others is to find ways to remove yourself from situations that provoke you to start comparing in the first place. For me, a lot of the time was from Instagram. It’s been 4 months since I deleted the app from my phone, and I can say it helped me tremendously. I’m more focused on the things that are in front of me rather than worrying how or what I’m doing is still behind/ lacking compared to A/ B. It also helped me to be more productive as Instagram itself was super time-consuming.
5. It’s normal to be on different pages in life with your friends.
6. You don’t have to be great at something to start, but you need to start somewhere to be great at something.
7. Ask, don’t assume. I struggled with this a lot at the beginning of starting my job. I’m the type of person who has high expectations for myself and puts this immense pressure to excel and do well in whatever I do. Though this could be extremely rewarding and motivational, it put me in situations where I would overcomplicate things trying to find ways to solve tasks by myself because of my fear of sounding stupid/ inexperienced if I ask. While in reality, I am inexperienced when I’m starting something new. But that doesn’t always mean a bad thing. Take my case, fresh graduates are mostly inexperienced, and it’s totally okay to ask things when you don’t know how to do them. As long as you’re showing great enthusiasm and curiosity to learn, I would recommend asking and learning as much as you can. Your bosses could even take it as a positive sign of your commitment to be better at what you do.
8. Take a chill pill and take things one step at a time. Because I tend to expect a lot from myself, I get mad if I fail to do certain tasks at a certain time. One of my biggest flaws was that I’m an impatient perfectionist. When I’m observing and determining situations where I would do my work, I tend to get overwhelmed when things are happening at the same time. I get stressed out on the idea that I need to figure out all of this, not only alone but at that exact time. Even if I know the deadline of the task wasn’t at that time, I always felt the need to have all the answers by the first time I come across the task/ question, which is impossible. Unless you’re a genius. Rome wasn’t built on one night. I learned about this more so this year than any other year. I shouldn’t stop doing things/underestimate myself just because I didn’t get it on the first try. I realize now that I have time and the determination to figure out all the answers as I go.
9. Recognize and call out gaslighting when you see it. This can be applied to many things. But I realized now that the most severe form of gaslighting is when this society convinces you that to grow, you have to endure pain and pressure. No. Growth can be achieved if you’re in an environment that gives you enough appreciation and acceptance to explore your fullest potentials. The last thing you need to be the best version of yourself is tolerating other people’s bullshit, especially those who exploit you and keep taking from you and only give you the bare minimum to survive. Yes, growth sometimes can be inconvenient due to the challenges we have to take/ face. Unfortunately, people use this as an excuse to create unnecessary pain and pressure on others, neglecting the fact that having a safe foundation is also a requirement to grow.