Feeling something
I typed myself again today after my many months of internship, learning how to work with people and being sensitive to their emotions and needs. It's almost as if we all have this innate desire to group ourselves into something to feel like we belong. (For those wondering, I type as an INFP now, when I was an INTP before my internship, perhaps this was what gave me the inspiration to write about this).
In the past few months, I've made considerable progress in self-improvement. For one, I started writing again, which would explain why you are reading this. I finally plucked up the courage to experiment a little with fashion and letting myself look NOT LIKE A HOBO.
I really never realised how many excuses I gave myself to fall from where I was. Tonight, I found time to read a sequel to a book that I read when I was in primary school. What a long time ago. I was that bashful, ambitious little boy. It's almost as if I've been transported to where I was. Where my worries about the world had not consumed me yet. When I lived my life by that last line in that book.
"...the world shall be your oyster"
I kind of forgot the first part of that sentence, but I remembered how inspired I was by that line. I was young, naive. I had ambitions of changing the world, to eradicate world hunger, to cure cancer, to make things better.
Time passed and took its toll. I failed in many things. In those many things, I picked up many new skills, but from the failures, my confidence wavered. How am I, one individual, supposed to change the world by myself?
I'm not sure if I can speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself when I say that I lock my emotions up when I face failure. To me, it takes a prison with reinforced 5-inch-thick steel walls to contain my emotions of shame, anger and sorrow when I learn that I have failed, that I am not good enough. It worked. In fact, I would say it worked too well. For years, my plan was always to bring up the prison whenever I had problems. To me, emotions were weak. They were everything that I did not want to be. I did not want to take things personally, so I took them as though I was a robot with no emotions.
Surely I can't bear a grudge if I couldn't bear any feelings at all.
But with it, I felt no joy when things went well. No remorse when things went wrong. Each failure or success was just another track record to add to the list of things I've done.
It was almost like coding. Each action was but another line of code. There were no motivations, no feelings. It was empty. I was a shell. Don't take me wrong, I was still very much empathetic, I still felt for people, but I could not feel the same way for the work I did or for feedback I received concerning myself.
Who would've known that the key to enlightenment rested in the pages of a book that was untouched since 2009?
I took some time to reflect. Where did all this drastic actions come from? Where did I fall from this heartwarming, loving person who wanted nothing but the best for everyone to someone who just wanted things done?
I lacked courage.
I thought I could control everything, from the rules of the world to how I felt internally. Truth is, some things are beyond our control. I did not have the courage to face that. I did not believe that any path other than mine was right for me, and so I fought, and I got frustrated the more I fought.
In trying to control everything, I dropped things I could not control - everything else other than my emotions. And in doing so, I ended up with nothing. Nothing to lose, nothing to control. I ended up with a shell of myself, who took a look at his own achievements over the years and just turned away and said "meh, where's the next project?"
What forced me to rethink my perspective was sitting here at 4AM before a job with one of my colleagues from my internship company.
My internship has taught me many things, but above all, it taught me to trust people.
My manager was kind enough to tell me something I've never heard of once. "Eason, that's a coping mechanism."
And honestly, I applaud her for that. Who would've thought someone who's doing perfectly okay in school, someone who has his emotions in check, someone who kept his composure when things went awry (ahem, was at a corporate video shoot with my team when I realised we didn't pack batteries for the camera). Who would've thought this person had any problems to deal with other than how he was gonna get his next A?
That line spurred me to think more about who I am and what I've done.
I've learnt to trust people, but more importantly, I have learnt that I need to separate what I can control with what I can't. I know I can control my emotions, and I can do a better job of it than I am now. I also learnt that I cannot control what goes on around me, I can only influence them. I learnt that I cannot sit in silence waiting for people to know how I feel, that's immature. I have a voice, and I must find the courage to use it. I learnt that I have the power to do certain things, and that I must use it, because even if I can't change the world, every little bit counts. I can start with people, and I can start with people around me. I can empower them.
I learnt that I need to find the courage I lack to put all these into action and to stop hiding behind my mechanism of imprisoning my emotions or of shunning people because "they're stupid".
All it takes is that courage. The courage so that each day, I can give my best, knowing that tomorrow will come, and the next day will follow, and that these days and hardships will become but a memory to me.
I learnt that I can secure my future, and the future of those around me as long as I remain alongside them when we disagree, instead of imprisoning them because of my own insecurities or discarding them.
I learnt that all I need to do is to understand people more, and walk alongside them so that we may help one another.
But all this pales in comparison to what I have learnt, or rather re-learnt.
Written in the books untouched since 2009, on one of the last few, yellow, wrinkled pages in that dog-eared book, I found the sentence I forgot, just in time for my last semester in FMS.
"So long as you possess the courage... the world shall be your oyster"
In the past few months, I've made considerable progress in self-improvement. For one, I started writing again, which would explain why you are reading this. I finally plucked up the courage to experiment a little with fashion and letting myself look NOT LIKE A HOBO.
I really never realised how many excuses I gave myself to fall from where I was. Tonight, I found time to read a sequel to a book that I read when I was in primary school. What a long time ago. I was that bashful, ambitious little boy. It's almost as if I've been transported to where I was. Where my worries about the world had not consumed me yet. When I lived my life by that last line in that book.
"...the world shall be your oyster"
I kind of forgot the first part of that sentence, but I remembered how inspired I was by that line. I was young, naive. I had ambitions of changing the world, to eradicate world hunger, to cure cancer, to make things better.
Time passed and took its toll. I failed in many things. In those many things, I picked up many new skills, but from the failures, my confidence wavered. How am I, one individual, supposed to change the world by myself?
I'm not sure if I can speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself when I say that I lock my emotions up when I face failure. To me, it takes a prison with reinforced 5-inch-thick steel walls to contain my emotions of shame, anger and sorrow when I learn that I have failed, that I am not good enough. It worked. In fact, I would say it worked too well. For years, my plan was always to bring up the prison whenever I had problems. To me, emotions were weak. They were everything that I did not want to be. I did not want to take things personally, so I took them as though I was a robot with no emotions.
Surely I can't bear a grudge if I couldn't bear any feelings at all.
But with it, I felt no joy when things went well. No remorse when things went wrong. Each failure or success was just another track record to add to the list of things I've done.
It was almost like coding. Each action was but another line of code. There were no motivations, no feelings. It was empty. I was a shell. Don't take me wrong, I was still very much empathetic, I still felt for people, but I could not feel the same way for the work I did or for feedback I received concerning myself.
Who would've known that the key to enlightenment rested in the pages of a book that was untouched since 2009?
I took some time to reflect. Where did all this drastic actions come from? Where did I fall from this heartwarming, loving person who wanted nothing but the best for everyone to someone who just wanted things done?
I lacked courage.
I thought I could control everything, from the rules of the world to how I felt internally. Truth is, some things are beyond our control. I did not have the courage to face that. I did not believe that any path other than mine was right for me, and so I fought, and I got frustrated the more I fought.
In trying to control everything, I dropped things I could not control - everything else other than my emotions. And in doing so, I ended up with nothing. Nothing to lose, nothing to control. I ended up with a shell of myself, who took a look at his own achievements over the years and just turned away and said "meh, where's the next project?"
What forced me to rethink my perspective was sitting here at 4AM before a job with one of my colleagues from my internship company.
My internship has taught me many things, but above all, it taught me to trust people.
My manager was kind enough to tell me something I've never heard of once. "Eason, that's a coping mechanism."
And honestly, I applaud her for that. Who would've thought someone who's doing perfectly okay in school, someone who has his emotions in check, someone who kept his composure when things went awry (ahem, was at a corporate video shoot with my team when I realised we didn't pack batteries for the camera). Who would've thought this person had any problems to deal with other than how he was gonna get his next A?
That line spurred me to think more about who I am and what I've done.
I've learnt to trust people, but more importantly, I have learnt that I need to separate what I can control with what I can't. I know I can control my emotions, and I can do a better job of it than I am now. I also learnt that I cannot control what goes on around me, I can only influence them. I learnt that I cannot sit in silence waiting for people to know how I feel, that's immature. I have a voice, and I must find the courage to use it. I learnt that I have the power to do certain things, and that I must use it, because even if I can't change the world, every little bit counts. I can start with people, and I can start with people around me. I can empower them.
I learnt that I need to find the courage I lack to put all these into action and to stop hiding behind my mechanism of imprisoning my emotions or of shunning people because "they're stupid".
All it takes is that courage. The courage so that each day, I can give my best, knowing that tomorrow will come, and the next day will follow, and that these days and hardships will become but a memory to me.
I learnt that I can secure my future, and the future of those around me as long as I remain alongside them when we disagree, instead of imprisoning them because of my own insecurities or discarding them.
I learnt that all I need to do is to understand people more, and walk alongside them so that we may help one another.
But all this pales in comparison to what I have learnt, or rather re-learnt.
Written in the books untouched since 2009, on one of the last few, yellow, wrinkled pages in that dog-eared book, I found the sentence I forgot, just in time for my last semester in FMS.
"So long as you possess the courage... the world shall be your oyster"
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