Not The Destination, But The Journey

Things are going to be fine. I just love those sessions after gym, where I would get a can of something ice cold to drink, and hang out alone by the swimming pool. Almost every night, it's been a really therapeutic journey for me. I do a lot of thinking, especially picking up after the pieces of myself that were left by the people or incidents that have happened in my life. It's helped a lot for me to put my mind at peace, and I love writing my thoughts down afterwards, as a reminder. After every session, I feel really uplifted, and there's hope for me to live life to the fullest once again. I'd love to share that with others. The key is to be careful with the direction that my thoughts head to. Don't want to end up with a train of depressing thoughts while I'm chilling alone. I'm happy to say that I've managed to steer them in a positive and uplifting direction every time. That's why I look forward to my gym and swimming pool sessions afterwards. Life is good. Alone time.

The only downside of it is that occasionally, a guy (or a bunch of them), would come up to me and just won't leave me in peace. I'll have to move elsewhere, away from my fucking comfortable spot. Or go home altogether. I can be okay with it if that person has some good ideas to share with me and we'd have a fulfilling conversation, but most of the time it just gets creepy and depressing when they're only clearly interested in you know what. I had an interesting conversation once, but he was heading in the creeper direction at the end. So that was another goodbye. I mean it's nice to hang out alone, but it would be nice to have a good conversation partner when you're feeling so chill, especially with the night ambiance. Too bad I can't do it often with the people I talk so well with since they don't live nearby.

Speaking of friends, I was thinking about how nobody likes being around a person who's down most of the time. (My cousin kind of told me this in a harsh way. It hurt when he said it so bluntly to me. But perhaps it was good to push me to take that first step. Tough love. That's how it runs in my family unfortunately. I don't like that. It kind of made me stop wanting to share problems with them. Harsh. But thanks for the reality check). Unless they really care about you, then they will stick with you through thick or thin. Unfortunately, we can't rely on every person you meet to give too much of a damn about you. At the end of the day, you just need to look out for yourself. But then again, it will benefit you anyway, since you're trying not to feel so down often. Putting on that smile, whenever you're around someone. It's even better when it's sincere, when you're really feeling it deep down. So yeah, keep that uplifted spirit, for your own sanity and for the sake of socializing. No harm in that. Well even I can't stand being with myself if I'm down all the time. I used to be fucking emo when I was a teenager and my early college years. But after all those years of depression, something in me just clicked and I got tired of feeling that way. It felt like I was going nowhere with feeling down all the time, and it was also driving people away. Not to mention opportunities for new life experiences. When you're down all the time, you even start hating being around yourself. That's probably why you'll start hurting yourself physically and/or emotionally. Nobody would (perhaps), or could help me, so I just did it myself. I don't want to be bitter about how nobody helped me when I was down, I'm just too busy feeling thankful that I have the ability to be a sincerely happy person once again. All on my own accord. I feel like the power of attractive thinking ties pretty well with this as well.

Two quotes that I think about pretty often when I start to feel down, "Happiness is not about the destination, it's about the journey" and "Don't feel sad that it's over, smile because it happened". It's a bit hard to steer yourself into a happy mindset, when you're clearly feeling down. But if you want it badly enough, you can make yourself happy, from the bottom of your heart. Every one has their own style, I discovered mine and I'm glad. It takes years of soul searching. I don't claim to have finished with mine yet, but I can get that peace of mind more often nowadays. What's great is when you don't need drugs or alcohol to reach that state of mind. You can do it on your own, can't depend on other people too much, because chances are they'll be too busy with their own lives. I can do it without substance abuse (alcohol, lol) most of the time. But sometimes the depression gets too overwhelming, that at certain times, I have to admit that I indulge in that pathetic drunkard act at home alone. The thought of allowing myself to do that in extreme cases is embarrassing. But hey, this is my blog and I liberate my thoughts by being downright honest. That's also another way to attain peace of mind. And perhaps by being completely honest with yourself, you'll feel really disgusted with the truth and eventually stop whatever bad thing it is that you're doing. If you don't want to lie to yourself or to someone you care about, then just don't fucking do it. I know I feel so much more at peace, somewhat clean. (I used to be such a goody two shoes with my parents when I was a kid. What an ass kisser.)

It's common sense that we should allow ourselves time to grieve, but it's more important to always remember when to pick yourself up again. Remember, remember. I'm working on that. Remembering to be happy again. When I'm on that track once again, I never ever want to leave. Life isn't perfect, so I'm gonna fall out of line again sometime anyway. On the bright side, as more years have passed, the coping methods are only going to be better. Alone or with friends, things are always going to be alright, god willing.

I have also come to accept the fact that people (even family) will not stay in your life forever, but sometimes, if fate permits, they will come back into your life. Like for one thing, it's my mum. For years, I have been really down about her being so emotionally distant, always too busy with the new people in her life. Been missing those good quality times with her when I was a kid. But recently, we've been talking more - exchanging more words than usual, haha. I love that time when we actually shared some funny stories in her car. I was like, "Holy shit, I miss that a lot", and "Wow, so this is how it actually felt like with my mum when I was much younger". I can't believe how long it has been. My friends told me that we seem just like housemates, not so much of a mother and daughter. You know how it is with housemates - say hi whenever you bump into each other, go about your own business, then not seeing much of each other. I'm trying not to be too obsessed with this progress, because like I said, people will come and go. So even if any one of those people I care about isn't around anymore, there will always be that emotional strength and stability to still be able to live life to the fullest. No need to wait around for someone, leaving your state of life stagnant. I used to be one who waited around, never again. Wasted years of bringing myself down for people who aren't even there... Or don't even care (As my friend would say, "Choi, choi, choi". lol). What a shame when the 'gift' of life is wasted away. When you could have done so much more for yourself, and even better, for others. Win-win, bitch.

The most awesome thing is when you embark on this journey of positive thinking, you won't be so lonely anymore. There will definitely be more company, more like minded people. I haven't fully succeeded in this yet, but I'm still working on it. I'm just not consistent enough with it yet. Also, it feels good to share these things I find out with whichever one of my friends. Even better if it's a two way conversation, and not just one person contributing. For example, I've been talking a lot with this one friend/colleague, who's one of the more depressing/negative person I know. She seems to be much more at peace with herself now, even giving me my own advice when I was down. Haha. It is tough trying not to let myself get sucked into the negativity, but with some distance and a strong hold on my beliefs, other people can actually be helped. Haha, I'm definitely glad I didn't go through with my initial plan to become a shrink. I remember my cousin laughing at me when I told her about thinking of taking up psychology. She was like, "So you actually want to be a shrink?". No problem. But I will have a problem if they actually stop me from taking up my passion in the arts. I have a strong feeling that some of them disagree with what I studied and doing for a living. Never mind. I'm having a blast with my work. It's tough getting started, but then again, what isn't tough in the beginning? I might as well choose something I can be passionate about and live with whatever hard knocks that will come my way because of it. You can go even further with it if you're loving it.

So yeah, there's not much reason to let yourself remain down. Life is actually exciting once you look at it in a different light. Read more, talk to more people, experience more, and you'll find out how to look at life in that new way. I actually took about a whole year last year to experience as many crazy things as I can. Crazy in the sense that I would never do anything out of my comfort zone. I did it especially after that painful break up. The journey last year was crazy, busy, tiring, enlightening. No more, I'm going for a more chilled direction this year. With all that experience, I'm using it to build up my emotional strength. I don't want to be so easily torn down by life's unexpected setbacks. Haha, putting myself through shit just to come out better on the other side.

It makes me happy thinking about the things that I want, and can, do with my life. I know some of my dreams aren't very well thought through (as some people would tell me, when I got so excited about them). So correct me when I get my facts wrong. Anyways. For starters, it's my line of work. I've been learning as much as I can while I'm working. I regard it as my 'base camp'. Ha ha. Learning those things that'll help me do what I want with my life later on. I've been pretty keen on doing what this guy does: https://www.youtube.com/user/MatthiasmVideos . Imagine being asked by some big artist to do their stage back drop, or video, or whatever. Those things aren't cheap. Being paid a lot to create super cool stuff would be awesome. I can say, "I did that!". Ha. Second, is to get out there more. Be heard and be seen more. It's actually fun once you're comfortable being around strangers, something I'm not consistent enough with... Yet. That Facebook event feature is pretty good. There are some actually pretty cool stuff going on around my area. I met a good friend at this event for motion graphics. He's actually one of the talented speakers, and what's impressive is that he's around my age. A pretty inspiring person. So yeah, you never know who you'll get acquainted with, if you'll just step outside. I just need to be more consistent with the socializing. Unfortunately, I'm naturally a loner. If I'm not careful, I'd end up just holed up at home. I was also thinking if I should go more into learning languages. That ought to be something useful to be occupied with. Time consuming, and useful. Enough said. And of course, I've always wanted to travel for work. Spending a few years at a country, depending on the duration of the contract. All the things I've been doing, all for a bigger picture. Some of the things I'm dreaming of may not be well informed, but you don't have to put someone down just because they're wrong. Correct them nicely, mother fuckers. I'm tired of people like that. Weak people put others down, the strong ones lift them up. Ha. Not my own saying, but it's a good one.



Haha, that's a long ass thinking session that I did by the pool. Not exactly word by word of course, since I didn't bring my piece of crap phone with me just now to spontaneously jot down my thoughts. Should've brought a pencil though. I could just spend hours by the pool alone, but not quite alone. It is nice that there are other people around me, but just please do not disturb. If you do, I hope you're an interesting person to talk to.