Hi everyone! I just came here because I felt like writing some random things, even though I don't know what I wanted to write about. Well, but before we start, let me talk about how fast time flies! It's already July, which means that the first half of this year has already gone!
So many people make New Year's resolutions at the beginning of each year, but I feel like so many people don't even remember what their resolutions were by this time of the year. lol To be honest, I'm that kind of person. I remember thinking what I wanted to set as my goals of 2017 at the end of 2016, and I remember I did set my goals. But I don't remember what they were... So naturally, I have know clue whether I have been doing good or not, and I have no way to assess how far I've come, and set new smaller goals to achieve the resolutions. What about you? Do you remember your New Year's resolutions? Are you on a right track? Do you think you can achieve the goals? Or have you forgotten your resolutions like me? Or are you pretending like you've forgotten them? lol
Actually, I think I wrote my resolutions on Facebook. Haha, I know, I'm just an average person who writes "Happy New Year!" on Facebook, and continues to write what I'm looking forward to for the new year, and some resolutions. So, okay, I'll go check my Facebook, and see if I really wrote my resolutions for 2017 or not. ... Nope, I didn't write anything regarding goals for 2017. But I did remember right now that I wrote my resolutions on this very blog of mine! What?! How could I ever forget that?! Jeez, I am so bad! lol
Ok, so I just went back, and read the one of my old posts... I wrote an article titled, "New Year's Resolution!" on the 3rd of January this year. Yes, loud and clear; "New Year's Resolution!" lol And basically my goals for this year was (Note that I'm using the past tense, "was"!): to read more books that the year before, to get a job because I'm graduating next March, to study Eastern philosophy, and to help people be more confident of themselves.
Oh, alright... Okay. Now I can't pretend that I've forgotten all my resolutions, and therefore I don't have to work hard. lol Well, despite the fact that I have forgotten the goals that I set in January, I will look back on the past 6 months, and see if I'm doing good or not.
The first one: read more books that the previous year. Yay! I can say with a proud that I have been doing good on this one! Yes, I've read more than 10 books this year (about 15?), and will continue to keep reading more books, so it's easy to read more than I did last year. I didn't read many books last year, to be honest; I read about 10 books or so. I don't really know the exact number but definitely a little more than 10, but less than 15. By See? It's crystal clear that I will definitely break the record. By the way, the reason why I cannot give you the exact number is that I am not a good record keeper. I have a little note to keep the record of books I've read. But sometimes, I forget to renew it. So there should be some books I've read, but do not appear on my book journal.
I've been reading 3 books currently, which are "Magnetism" by F. Scott. Fitzgerald, "The Crime and Punishment" (vol. 3) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and "Naked Man: Digital's Invisible Dictatorship" by Marc Dugain and Christophe Labbé. The first one is a collection of some short love stories written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The second one is... you know? It's famous. I've already read vol. 1&2, so I've moved on to read vol. 3 which is the last one. The third one is originally written in French. Oh no, I do not speak French. I am reading the Japanese translated version. I don't know if there's an English version of the book, so let me know if you know.
The next goal: get a job! Oops, nope, I have't accomplished this one yet. I'm still working on it.
The third one: study Eastern Philosophy. Oh, surprisingly, I can say, "Check!" on this one. I am taking a Zen class this semester, and learning about Buddhism and Zen. When I applied for this class in April, I had already forgotten about the resolution. But guess I'm lucky! lol And yes, I'm glad I took this class. I've learned things I didn't know, and it's the same as being able to look at a painting more deeply, or with different perspectives if you know some knowledge about the painter and the historical background of that period when the painter worked on the painting; now I have a little knowledge about Buddhism and Zen, and I can visit temples, and get more information out of it.
In the Zen class, we always practice meditation because meditation is the main emphasis on Zen school of Buddhism. You should not look for the enlightenment outside of your body; you should look within yourself. To go deeper and deeper in your mind, you meditate. Meditation is actually really hard. I mean if it was easy, everyone would be Buddhas. Making your mind empty is quite difficult. Try it for yourself. You'll soon know it's hard because your thoughts bubble up and float around on your mind constantly. Even thought the class will end this month, I will continue meditating, and perhaps I'll improve and learn something.
The last one: help people be more confident about themselves. Ouch. Well, even though I've made some positive comments about self-esteem on social media, but I have not made any systematic action towards this goal. As wrote in the "New Year's Resolution!" post, self-esteem is my personal issue as well. There are days when I think that I'm the ugliest, fattest, dumbest, etc., person on this whole planet. I see pictures of pretty girls on Instagram, and hate myself for not looking like them. But there are also days when I feel good about myself; I be me, and I enjoy it. I need to have more of this, and I want people to feel more of this as well. If we can stop comparing ourselves, we can be more confident. If we can learn that we don't have to be like other people, and we don't have to do or to be able to do the same things as other people, we can feel more comfortable with ourselves.
It's actually hard not to compare myself with people around me when we're all doing the job hunting. There are students who have finished job hunting already, which means that they've already got a job. Some students are still looking for a job even though they've got offers from different companies. Some students haven't got any offers, and still working on. We tend to have this equation on our minds that people who got a job early are winners of life, and people who haven't are losers. But you wouldn't know if you're the winner or the loser until the end of your life. Remember that.
It takes time to change how you see the world, and the change cannot be represented by numbers. So it's hard to evaluate how well I've done or how far I've reached. I do not know a perfect way to help people be more confident yet, but I need to try to do what I can do. I can write about it more on, for example, social media. I can treat people with positive attitudes, and compliment them as much as I can. You don't really talk so much about what you have on the deep place of your heart with random people or with your acquaintances, do you? I want to be a person whom people feel ok talking about those things to. I always wish that I had all the solutions for every problem people have. But I do not, and I just got to be kind and patient.
Ok, so that's all for today! Thank you for reading my post, even though this was a really personal one. I hope you all have the wonderful second half of 2017! See you till the next post!
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