Habit Challenge

I read that a habit is formed in 30 days. That seemed simple! I tired it a couple of times throughout my studies. Personally, I lack the discipline to make it stick as a habit. Nevertheless, there were successful moments.

In the past, instead of 30 days, I would add in a routine every semester. For instance, I would read through my lecture slides before the start of my lectures to have a better idea of the upcoming lecture. It helped because I was able to take notes only on the information that were not in the slides. It saved time. Plus, I was able to concentrate on the ideas rather than the details.

In the next semester, I added an additional step. To completely understand my notes before I attempted my tutorial questions. I would sit through a round of the recorded lecture to ensure I ironed out all confusion. In most cases, if there were still ambiguity, the internet and the recommended textbooks are the best source of answers.

You get the gist. That was during my studies. Alhamdulillah (Glory and Praise be upon Allah), I graduated.



The idea of this 'habit challenge' is taking small consistent baby steps. Everyone of us know ourselves better - our limits to change, our discipline threshold, our goals we wished to achieve, etc. This means I have to set my 'challenge' for myself!

Unconsciously, I was following these steps:

1. Set a goal (its progress has to be traceable). 
2. State the steps (your action) to achieve the goal. 
3. Set a reward upon the completion of each action. 

For example,

Goal:           Increase my grades in the new semester

Action:        Make a condensed notes for each chapter before the final exam

Reward:      An episode of a Korean drama

Discipline matters in implementing the reward system. Never stray from it. Reward yourself only after the action is done. It gets easier as time passed and a HABIT is BORN! ^_^ Congratulations.

Forgive & Forget

Can anyone really do that - to forgive and forget?

The experiences in life will always be within us. They replay over and over in our head, especially when we let our guard down. The good ones will be a joy while the bad ones just ruin our mood for that day.

The term "to forgive and forget" get thrown around so often. It seems logical but how do we erase these bad memories from our minds? If only we have access to the neuralyzer...

Why do people expect others to feign ignorance of what that had happened? Nothing can be like before. Once trust is broken, it can never be perfect once more. People are selfish. I think it is within our nature. We want everything to happen the way we want it to be, so we influence others in their decisions. We use our authority that was given to us as the management, the parent, the brother, the best friend, the significant other to influence the situation and the 'victim''s decision.

As humans, there is a part in us that also cares for others so we suppress our emotions (hurt, anger, sadness) to try to please the people that matters. We put a fake smile to hide our real feelings. How healthy can that be? Never.

It is unfortunate that my motto in life right now is "Smile at the face of adversity". It was to represent courage and strength in any events that cross my life. I still believe it does. But, I cannot forget. Whatever that happened will always be a part of me. It comes with the whole messed up emotions that will be triggered every time i recall those memories. I will be affected, I cannot pretend that it does not affect us.

To forgive. I am honestly working on it, I am trying my best. In the end of life, all these turmoil does not matter. We will die, if God wills, in peace.

Say Something...

I never understood why people stay silent when it is obvious they want something so badly. This song is about relationship, but think about it, it can be for anything. Even something minor like the sharing of food!!! (A foodie may take this example to heart. haha...)

Anyways, I guess innately, we have the thinking that "I shall remain silent so I will not hurt him/her" or "I do not want to ruin his/her future, I shall keep my feelings to myself".

No matter how noble it is, is it really better to keep the other party in the dark? Come on...  Isn't it unfair to him/her? Any decision made by your beloved would be biased because he/she was not informed of the whole aspect of the situation.

The best examples will be the plots in many dramas - not informing a blind parent that his/her child has passed away, hiding the love for someone just because he/she will be going overseas, etc. Keeping hush always end up in regret, sadness and anger for the oblivious one once he/she uncovers the truth.

Trust is harder to repair after it is broken. Just tell the truth and allow the other time to heal.

  

Life Lessons

Have you ever noticed that the tests in life are repeated over and over again until you learnt the 'true' lesson behind them?

For example, since I am naturally short-tempered, I have come across people in my life who loves pushing my buttons. I am like a porcupine yet there are always some people who just love to poke me to observe my reaction. In anger, I wish to shoot my quills at them but I just cannot. Why? Because they need to be in contact to my quills for these 'mini-missiles' to target them, and they are smart enough to use a stick rather than their fingers. So, I will explode in anger and they will be miles away from me. That makes me look like a crazy person to others.

Well, that lesson came too often that I realized I failed in every one of them. My feelings and actions to the provocation was too dramatic. If you were to look at it as a game of life, it means I never made it to the next level. I was stuck! It sucks to know I was at a plateau.

Then again, patience is not a skill that you get immediately after the realization. I am still improving on that. My limits of patience has increased and so has the level of difficulty of these provocators. You have the minions, the middle bosses and the big bosses.

I learnt to not take the minor problems to heart, to maintain my heart in equilibrium most of the time (mainly by supplicating and becoming God conscience), and to always think before I react.


Just something I wish to leave a note to myself and all... A reminder to my and all 'future self', to carry on in life knowing that "Hey, you did well! You changed for the better ^_^".    

Mine

Numb Heart

After everything that had happened, I realized how numb I was to emotional pain. My logical mind is now in control. It sensed the danger of any incoming possible situations that would hurt me and it will trigger my defence to be up. I will close myself from that person, which includes staying away from him or asking him straight if he meant to hurt me. 

My mom described me as being hard-hearted. I called it "a way to protect myself and survive in this world". I admit that is not the right way to handle things, but for now, it is the only way I know to buy some time for my broken heart to heal. 

I read a quote "Truth is, everyone is going to hurt you; you just got to find the ones worth suffering for". It made re-look at my state. Maybe I just have not met the right person. Am I expecting too much from a person? I admit that I am not perfect so I should not have expected anyone to be as well. 

Even in this state, I believe that my family will always be the core of my heart.   

Airplane Rides

It is nice to escape from life once in a while. Traveling is so easy these days. Book an airplane ticket, be present for the flight, and I arrive in a new country where no one knows me.



During my first few flights, the idea of being in the skies was exciting. How can such a big airplane fly? I know there are physics concepts behind that, but my curiosity was there. I was excited, my eyes were big and shining, like a kid. There will be a background countdowns in my mind at takeoff and landing times. The increasing pressure within the cabin gave me an adrenaline rush. In the skies, the sky looked amazing! A horizon of fluffy clouds was beautifully lighted by the rays of the sun. Due to that I loved the window seat.




Now, I am still amazed by the beauty out the window but I am not bothered if I am not able to get my window seat. It is because, I always got distracted by the entertainment at my seat. For the price I paid, I felt the compulsion to watch to the newest movies or listen to the newest songs. As soon as I am onboard and sitting comfortably on my seat, I immediately get my headphones ready and start browsing through the huge selection of videos and songs. I only realized that my body was on auto mode during my last trip. No matter how sleepy I was, my body just moved and I will force myself to finish the season of "The Big Bang Theory".



This is not a good sign. Why am I distracted from the beauty that God has created? What changed? I was not like that before, I want my old me back... I sounded like a kid throwing a fit. ^_^
  

 

 

Avoiding the Crowd & My Little World

There will always be a crowd at popular holiday destinations. It is unavoidable, even if I travel on a non-peak season. For some odd reason, I will naturally gear to the path with "least resistance". Lesser people, slower stroll, more time to enjoy the surroundings.

While travelling to Korea last year, I was often missing-in-action to my travelling buddies. They would then spent their precious time finding me. I am grateful to have them looking out for me but I was not lost. I was just walking a different path from them. My radar was always tracking where they were. When I noticed they stopped and looked worried, I immediately popped up beside them like a magician. Then, *poof* I vanished once again.

I like being in my own little world. Observing the scenery, the people, the things, the food... There are so many to be awed by. Nothing can beat Nature. No matter how amazing the architecture or futuristic the art, Nature wins. It tops in its shapes, its colours, its overall serenity. My appreciation then leads to realization that the creator of them must be more beautiful, more powerful, more lovely. ^_^

Nami Island, South Korea

    

       

Detachment #1c: 1 Month

It is done. One month, 30 days. That is all it takes to change anything I want, if I put my mind into it. Time to move on with other areas of my life. Smiling as go along...  ^_^

Detachment #1b: Clear Boundaries

It has been 3 weeks since any contact with Person X. It does get easier as time passes. However, there are times when I wish he would rekindle the relationship. Bah, humbug! Come on, I can do this. God, please give me strength.


These are my steps to detach myself from him. The aim is to set clear boundaries.

Step 1: Clearly define relationship
My last message to him was to clearly state that we are better as friends and I gave my reasons. Rather than cutting a good guy out of my life, I rather have him as a friend. I also eliminate the ambiguity of our relationship. I tried my best to end things will a good note. I have never understood the need to play the "vanishing game" on others. I believe that it would be better to clear all misunderstandings and separate amicably.     

Step 2: Cut any unnecessary contact
As (casual) friends, I will limit myself to just sending well wishes to him during celebrations.



The only determinant of success or failure is self-discipline to stay within the boundaries.
[I can do this... I can do this...]

False Independence

Being independent is always seen as one of the perks in becoming an adult. Sometimes, we even gain false confidence from the thought that we are independent. But, are we really independent?

In life, we are always dependent on something or someone. For instance, we depend on our employer to pay our salary on time. We depend on our families to be a support in troubled times. We even depend on the transport system to reach work on time. Dependence is normal. It is not only subjected on humans but on everything that exists. Pets depend on the owners to feed them. Wild animals depend on the availability of natural resources (environment, food, water). In actual fact, we are interdependent. There is a cobweb of dependence that links everyone and everything together!

The misplaced confidence that we get from thinking we are "independent" is destructive. I believe it is one of the roots of arrogance. Instead of being grateful, we sometimes attribute the success to ourselves leading to excessive self-pride and forgetting our roots.


Within any monotheistic religion (the belief in only one God), the dependence is only to the one God. This is because the one God is the creator of everything that exists. I as a human am a creation of God. Rather than putting my dependence on other creations (e.g. sun, moon, fire, water, animals, other humans), I place my trust and dependent entirely on the creator, God. To me, it is the most logical conclusion. Without my religion, I would be lost.

Detachment #1a: A Person

The heart easily attaches itself to someone or something. Be it a crush, or a boyfriend, or makeup or fashion. Whatever it is, some attachments are good while most are bad. To detach from them is a decision made after considering their pros and cons.

I am trying to detach from someone. The kind of link that we have is very vague. We like each other. The use of the word "we" itself felt weird. We were never an item. We were in the floating realm of more than friendship but not a couple. I was naive, I must have confused myself in using "love" than "like".

Communication is the key to any relationship, and unfortunately, that was missing. I barely know this guy, yet I was attached to him. I wonder if he ever thinks about me, if there is any chance of us being together in future. Let my imagination run wild...

After the burst of lovey dovey emotions, my rational thinking overtakes. It is not possible to be in love with someone when I know so little of them. Logically, a long distance relationship with little communication just will not work. It will NOT work. I blame myself for falling for him. Maybe it was a moment of weakness, I was just insecure and made myself vulnerable. The truth is till now, I cannot pin point the reason of falling for him. Everything is just a blur.

Nevertheless, I have made a decision to cut this unhealthy attachment. He will just be a friend to me. I will not be in contact with him other than random well wishes. I have popped the fairy tale, now I just need to ensure it remains deflated.      

Locking my Heart

I am grateful for the good life I had. Most of my life was smooth sailing. No major bumps. I just "go with the flow". However, when something bad happens, I crumbled. A big smile on the outside but a broken heart within. It was hard opening up to anyone because it is not my nature to.

Talking to someone about my problems just reignite the emotional hurt and anger. Usually, I would ignore my emotions and force myself to forget the incident. But this time, I did gabbed about it to a few of my close friends. It was days after enduring the stabbing pain in the heart.

I finally understood the meaning of  "heartbroken". The pain was intense. It was like as though someone smashed my glass heart. A part of it was broken into small pieces, and I was frantically trying to glue it back together. I felt helpless. No one was able to help me.

Emotions are tricky to handle. Be it pain or love or hate. These feelings just popped out of no where and can easily overtake your actions in a heartbeat, if you let them to. But, I believe that these emotions are what that makes us humans. I really need to learn how to handle these wild horses...  


"Time heals". Does it, really? I think it does. But depending on the healing process, there might be the presence of scars. For me, I have a scar. Every time I recall that moment, I can feel the stabbing pain. The intensity of that pain is lesser but it is still there. It affects me greatly. I question the notion of "trust". Why should I trust anyone? The letdown is so much more if it involves someone I trust.

At the back of my head, I know it is not possible to live without trusting anyone. I am not going to allow myself to become paranoid of others. I am not going to close my heart to others. I have done that before and it is not a life. I would be a robot, doing what I am required and feeling empty inside.

For now, I need time to heal. Not to heal the cut but to heal the scar. I am locking my heart temporarily...