Reflections + Hello 2015!

Just a word of warning before you proceed with this post - it's going to be wordy and it's going to be long. I'm not going to be critical and check my grammar/sentence structures, so if you hate words or if you have dysgrammatophobia (yeah I just googled that), just scroll to the end of this post where you will find visual representations of how I spent the last day of 2014. 

I wanted to do the usual New Year Resolutions (NYR from here onwards), but I figured NYR posts are a little bit pretentious - well, at least for my NYR posts. After looking back at all my NYR posts (both online and offline), I realised I only wanted to momentarily make myself feel better by setting goals that seemed assuring that my life would be enriched and interesting in the coming year. And then we all know what happens to most NYR - they end up being just a post or just a list of things you want to do, but most of them will not be things that you have done. That momentary period is incredibly addictive though because you imagine a better life for yourself and hey, who doesn't want to think of a better life? Thoughts are powerful and if you think about it (hehe, sorry bad pun but yeah I had to get it out the system), our actions and behaviours are somewhat like self-fulfilling prophecies of our thoughts. For example, last year I had a NYR of completing a 21km marathon. At that moment in time, I thought of a better health regimen and completing a 21km marathon would be the perfect testimony of said better health regimen. Hence, when I wrote down this goal, I felt great. I felt like I had already conquered a 21km marathon. Did that happen? Nope. But did it feel good when I wrote down this goal? Oh yes, definitely. 

I'm going on and on about something highly insignificant because no matter how I find NYR pretentious, I know I'm still going to do it because I enjoy thinking about how my 2015 will be one that's immensely engulfed with positive life standards. 

Before I go on to my 2015 NYR, let me reflect on 2014 first. It has been a tremendously spiritual year with me finding out more about how much of a good and bad person I actually am. I'm not bullshitting right now, I actually really did have some time to reflect on my own existence and some of my realisations were not pleasant, but I'm willing to admit and acknowledge them now. 

Growing as an employee

2014 was the first full year in which I worked full time. Nothing too special here, but in just one year, I learned that being an employee was not just about doing what you're supposed to do and then getting paid for said work done. I have grown to become someone who defends my company when naysayers question us. There are a lot of people out there who don't understand how I can get paid my above average salary when my job is supposedly "easier" than theirs. They then start to question if my company is legit or not. Usually, I won't berate someone just because of their doubts. All I can say is my bosses are geniuses and they tackled an industry which lacked in terms of user-friendliness and user-specific customisations. Furthermore, I have grown to become someone who doesn't take quitting as a solution to work-related problems. It's always easy to disappear and quit, but now I understand the repercussions attached to such an irresponsible behaviour. I have done this before in the past and I'm definitely not proud of my action.  

A bad year for self-esteem

I don't have the ability to love myself and I can admit this loudly now. 2014 has been extremely trying for my self-esteem and there was a period whereby I almost fell back into depression. If you don't already know, I used to have depression and I came really close to killing myself. But it all turned out for the better, and 2013 was the year of explosively positive vibes - it was a darn good year. And then things started to take a U-turn, and I was back in the slump. Not such a deep slump, but I was in a slump. My depression mostly came from self-hate. Even when someone praised me, my brain would find a way to think of the praise negatively. For example, if someone said "oh wow, your eye makeup is so nice today!", I would think of it as "shit, is she saying I would look fucking ugly with no eye makeup on?". Yes, it's laughable if you have never experienced depression before. In 2014, I felt like I was the fattest person in the world with the worst skin condition ever. A tiny, nugatory gain of 0.5kg would freak the hell out of my brain cells and I would go into panic mode. It certainly didn't help that I have gorgeous friends (nope, not blaming any of them, I'm just saying my brain cells need to stop comparing myself to them). My brain just couldn't take all these unneeded comparisons and I remember crying myself to bed because I ate more than Kengyang and I didn't exercise that day. It's so stupid, but it happened. 

I'm desperate to belong

I have been denying this for my entire life, and finally I have come to admit that I'm desperate to have a sense of belonging. I have near-to-nothing sense of belonging family-wise, hence I always try to be in my friends' good books so that they will stay in my life. One way I do this is through giving excessive praises and through giving them gifts regularly. I have been doing this to my close friends since primary school and I guess it's what has become of me after a horrific childhood. I don't get much attention at home (some will call it abuse, but sometimes this word is used too loosely), so I try to get attention outside by making sure my close friends like me continuously and not kick me out of the group. As I grew older, this became a habit. I'm not saying that I don't mean or that I'm not sincere about what I say to my friends or what I give to my friends - I care way too much to be insincere. When I started to realise this desperation, I was alarmed and the self-hate started to come in. Why am I doing all these just to fulfill that thirst for belonging? I shower people with plaudits and I rarely get some in return, so why am I still foolish enough to do it? Why can't I just be bitter about it and just shut up? The truth is, I'm too much of a cowardice to do that. This has become a part of me and I have decided to continue doing it because I enjoy belonging to a group of friends and I enjoy giving. 

Side note to friends reading this: please don't take this the wrong way. I assure you that every positive thing that I've said to you came from my heart. Negative things.....maybe can ignore lar hor?

I learned to love a little bit more

This has got to be the most positive thing out of my 2014. Kengyang and I have been together for more than 3 years, but we still have heated arguments occasionally. Most of the time, I'm annoyed at something that he has done and I would start to fire my sarcastic words at him. Heated arguments are not pleasant. I get angry, he gets angry, and we say stupid things to each other. I will admit that when I'm angry, I will purposefully select nasty words to hurt the other party. It's a terrible, terrible habit that I'm trying to curb currently. So, whenever we get into our heated arguments, things go cray (of course not in a i-throw-flower-vase-at-you cray). The good thing about 2014 is that I learned how to take a step back and breathe before I say anything that I don't mean. And he also did the same. This way, I learned how to control my irrational anger. If I didn't have him in my life, I don't think I will ever learn to do that. People often say that you should not change yourself for another person and that he/she should accept you for what you are. But...what if I want to change myself for the better for my partner? What if I choose to change because I want to love my partner more? I'm not the perfect girlfriend and I'll never be, but I can confirm that in 2014, I learned to love Kengyang a little bit more, and I hope that every year, I will always love him a little bit more than the previous year. 

If you have made it to this part of the post - thank you very much, readers!!

Now here are my NYR for 2015:

• I want to try a juice cleanse once. I know people are saying how ridiculously expensive juice cleanses are and how they are actually bad for health, but I just want to torture myself once. 
• I want to complete a Ripped in 30 routine twice. My plan is to do each week's video for two weeks, so I should complete this routine in 8 weeks. The juice cleanse should not be carried out during this routine, because I will confirm pass out. 
• I want to care less about how many pimples I have on my face. I also want to care less about people who make comments about the pimples I have on my face. This is not easy, but I will try to care less. Key word here is less. 
• I want to save S$22,000 in 2015. 
• Travelling-wise, I'm aiming for Japan, Thailand and South Korea this year. The first two is already confirmed, but South Korea is currently still at the "say-only" period. I'm hoping my travelling does not hinder the previous NYR. 

These 5 are the only 5 specific NYR that I have. The rest are of course quite similar to all other years - lose weight lah, be more patient lah, don't get angry so much lah, ignore bad things at home lah, love my friends and boyfriend more lah, etc. Not-so-specific NYR are a bit ambiguous but they are good reminders of what I have to improve on. 

I spent the last day of 2014 with some amazing people at HillV2's Wine Connection. The meat platter as delicious, but my tuna steak was bland, tasteless and disappointing. But whatever lah - I still had an awesome time!

The tuna steak was perfectly medium rare, but there was no taste in any of the components. How can salsa be tasteless?? The squid ink fettuccine was just drenched in olive oil and nothing else. I had to sprinkle generous amounts of salt to salvage this plate of blandness. 

YAY!

New phone for the new year. Loving the space upgrade and still trying to get used to the larger screen. I had a 16gb iPhone 5 before this one and now I have a 64gb iPhone 6. The space upgrade is too awesome. I downloaded so many songs and podcasts and videos and I still have 42gb free??! All hail those gigabytes! 

Here's to a smashingly awesome 2015 to all of you and I hope the year started great for you! I have a excruciatingly painful sore throat and I spent the entire 1 January 2015 sleeping the fever and headache away. It's all better now but the throat is still not in a good condition. Well, the good thing is I'll hopefully be in tip-top condition for work next week! :D