Personal #1 - What I learned in 2016

Such a very late post but it's still January so please consider the whole month as the proper time to write a New Year's stuff.:9  Earlier this month, an accident happened so it kinda refrain me from writing this mandatory post. I'll talk about it later so let's stick to the title. A not-so-short talk about 2016.

Self Improvement
Major things happened on late 2015 which also marks the first time I'm moving to a new living space. New home and new office. Not forget to mention, I still need to deal with several incidents and personal matter which are totally stressful. In the first place, I am not someone who can easily adapt to new thing or under heavy pressure situation. I used to see problems and discomfort as a nuisance. Well, who doesn't? They keep coming no matter how hard we tried to avoid them but here's the big point. Whether we like it or not, we have to deal with it and not to run away from it.

In life, sometimes we are unconsciously stuck in our own 'comfort zone' and kinda lazy to get out from there. Not a bad thing and nothing wrong about it but believe me or not, problems or discomfort are the triggers to 'upgrade' ourselves and take our life to another level. Having problem demands you to do something to solve it. It might need a different method or opinion you'd never thought about before. We learn about new understanding or maybe we got a better approach to do things, and in the end we're actually progressing to be better than yesterday.

I started to understand why some people choose to leave their comfort zone. It is probably not only a matter of new environment or new challenge but also how to broaden our perspective through a new experience. A self improvement.

Another question that usually comes up with the changes is ... are you ready? I believe I am not the only one. I am not really into 'go with the flow' kind of person and usually gets everything planned. I'm afraid of failure. I'm afraid of wrong doings. I'm afraid that I won't be ready. A very good friend of mine told me that everyone will be ready when their time is come. It is kinda hard to understand but in real life there are a lot of reason why things could go wrong no matter how perfect we'd planned them so if one of our planned goes wrong... take a deep breath and chill out.

Remember there is a time for everything, including failure. Sometimes the biggest failure could be your success in disguise and that's just how weird life could be. Give it your the best shot although if it ended up with failure. At least you'd tried and will not burdened by regret for not doing your best.

Life is a long journey of learning.

Mindfulness

Perhaps it is all started I stumbled upon Konmari 'decluttering method'. Google 'Kondo Marie' if you have no idea about her. The first time I read about it, I somehow could relate to her vision through decluttering. It is not merely about how to organize or keep your things neatly in place. The point is to redefine your life by keep everything that 'spark joy' in our life, declutter what doesn't 'spark joy' and learn how to treat with respect.

As far as I could remember, since I was young I used to ask myself about what is the purpose of our life and how to be happy. We usually relate happiness with various things and moment. We are happy when we bought new clothes or when we spent our time with our dearest. I cannot say it is particularly wrong but I learned that happiness is not determined by what's going on around you but what is you truly state within.

It is about how to be grateful in any situation. It is about how to feel content with my own life. It is about how to appreciate things even to the slightest one. It is about how to think more positive in life. This might sounds weird but actually being mindful helps a lot and had big influence for me. Happiness is no longer something I need to seek outside. I learned how to focus on what's more important and not easily distracted by small matters. At the moment I'm typing this, I started to feel that I'm growing old already or let's say I'd grown way too fast.

A new year always means a lot for me, either for a fresh new start or to continue the incomplete goals. I will not write any resolutions for now although it is not that I have zero plans or goals. Let's see what we can do in this year and continue this talk at the end of the year. Have a great year ahead everyone :)