ayearwithadam - Tumblr blog

[ayearwithadam]

Loneliness, my best friend

    Loneliness. It’s being left with your thoughts and analyzing them to the point where they feel uncanny. You’ve become an observer standing from a distance watching a disaster unfold. Nothing really feels new or exciting anymore. Loneliness, your best friend, whom you’ve been dealing with for years.

    When Loneliness sat across you, your insecurities surfaced and your vitality decided to take a long walk off a short pier. You used to treat Loneliness like your antagonist, coming up with futile weapons to fight It. Your façade barely made a chink in Loneliness’s armor. You suppose It caught the lie, and you were forced to lay your weapons down to take a defeat. Over the course of time, you developed a resistance to the beatings and Loneliness gets bored. It goes away and you’re safe. One fine day, you’re sitting on your veranda, sipping on some iced tea and The Postman comes by and drops a letter.

    “EVICTION NOTICE”

    It seems like you haven’t been paying your dues. You rush inside your house, trying to gather what you find to be most valuable. You get the boxes from the storage room and fill them, beginning with your bedside table contents; your memories, dreams, and beliefs. You’ve been waiting for this day to come but you didn’t expect it to come so soon. There is a clutter of boxes around you, and your belongings tucked away in them. After a full day of packing, you lay down on your living room floor for a nap. A few dreams later, you are awakened by a sudden hollow echo of knuckles rapping at the front door.

    Loneliness now sits across you on your veranda. You don’t feel compelled to bring out your exhausted weapons anymore, the war has not begun yet. You pour Loneliness some iced tea, the least you could do is show some hospitality. Loneliness takes a long, slow sip of the iced tea and begins talking about past wars. You notice that Loneliness’s features look drained and old, almost.

    When you pay attention to the murmur of conversation, Loneliness tells you that you put up a good fight all these years, but now it was time to let go. You look surprised, almost sad that something that defined you all those years is now coming to an end. Sure, it hurt you but it is who you are. Everything feels a little strange but you are now comforted by the fact that you don’t have to try anymore.

    Accepting it rather than fighting it, especially when Loneliness is willing to comply with your terms. For once, you’re finally in control.

It’s been pretty difficult to write anything good these past few months. Everything I’ve tried to write turn out to be unintentionally depressing. As you can tell from the (almost finished) writing above, I’ve definitely been feeling a little lonely lately. The writing doesn’t make much sense to me yet but it’s something that I’ll probably come to understand better in the future, like reading a book at different stages in your life. I’ve been trying to write a fictional story but considering I don’t usually write fiction, it was more difficult than it entailed. It’s hard to just be candid with my emotions, so this vague storyline shall do. Frankly, I haven’t achieved the denouement of the story above in my personal life but that’s what we all strive for, don’t we? A blissful ending.

I’d love to hear feedback from anyone (negative or positive) who read this on my sayat.me, which I recently was told that it’s not SAYAT it’s SAY AT ME (too dumb to figure that out). Until next time! 

[ayearwithadam]

18 Things I Learnt In 18 Years

1. Give others the benefit of the doubt.

I believe that this is one of the most important lesson I’ve learnt. More than often, we tend to be blindsided by rumours we hear about others. I often forget that everyone has a reason behind their actions.

2. Mental health is more important than good grades.

I don’t think I would be listing this as a life lesson if I wasn’t a victim of sacrificing my happiness for my grades. I’d often find myself unable to take a break when studying because I was so worried about my grades. After countless times suffering for my grades, I realised that grades aren’t important. Failure isn’t the worst. Is it really worth working yourself to the ground if you’re not feeling happy with yourself throughout the experience?

3. Make decisions with a clear mind.

For the past few years, I’ve caught myself making impassioned decisions and end up feeling regretful of my decisions a few hours or days later. Emotions aren’t unwelcome but they tend to cloud my judgement too often. I’ve learnt over the years that putting my emotions aside always gave me a clear answer.

4. Don’t take yourself too seriously.

I suppose at a juncture, everyone realises this. Being “stupid” or making mistakes isn’t the end of the world. I used to avoid making mistakes altogether so that I couldn’t be the subject of witty remarks. Now, I find it funny that I was once that person. There are a lot of mistakes we make, we can always choose to worry about them or laugh about them.

5. Give remarks with the right intention.

I’ve seen so many people give “honest” remarks but at the end of it, someone gets hurt. I’m not going to lie, I used to be that person. Later, I realized that most of my remarks have the intention of bringing someone else down, even without meaning to. I know now that it was the manifestation of my own insecurities. From that, I learnt that projecting your own insecurities in your opinions can come off rude almost all of the time and the best thing to do is to be selfless and hope to bring up someone else instead of dragging them down with your insecurities.

6. If you’ve learnt to love yourself, you’ll never be alone.

Being “alone” is a state of mind. I have a choice. I don’t have to feel this way. I have myself, and that’s all I need. Funny thing, I realised this when I saw a tweet on Twitter which (to paraphrase) said, “Drake may have been dating Rihanna, but Rihanna was dating Rihanna”.

7. “You don’t protect your heart by acting like you don’t have one”.

I saw this on Tumblr and it rang true to me. Pretending like you’re not bothered by something does not make you stronger. I used to put on a façade that nothing bothered me, but eventually I became emotionally unavailable to myself and others. Expressing feelings is not weak nor vulnerable. What I’ve learnt is, if anyone tells you that caring or crying is weak, just give them a pitiful pat on the back and walk away.

8. It’s okay to be vulnerable.

This is a follow up to my previous point. It’s okay to cry or voice your problems, it makes you a stronger person. I’ve lived most of my life striving to not be vulnerable, trying not to make it evident that I disliked or liked something. Vulnerability should never be treated as a weakness, but instead as a way to learn more about yourself.

9. Always take the opportunity to teach than ridicule.

I used to laugh when someone didn’t know something that’s commonplace. I soon realised that there are a lot of things that aren’t commonplace to me, but are to others. So, do I want to be laughed at or taught? We don’t know everything, so we shouldn’t reject the opportunity to teach others or learn something new.

10. Respect and listen to your parents.

I’m lowkey a hypocrite when I say this, but I try my best to listen to my parents. They always have the best intentions for you even if their advice sounds ridiculous. Our parents brought us up protecting us from the horrors that happen out in the real world. I often forget that my parents have been around my whole life while I’ve only been in about a half of their life. And also the fact that they taught me how to rid excrements into a plumbing fixture for defecation and urination. They know more, trust me.

11. Dogs are fucking amazing.

Nothing to be explained here. Animals deserve all the love for putting up with human beings.

12. “The inability of other to see your worth does not, by any measure, make you worthless”.

At some point in your life, you’re going to come across someone who says hurtful things to you but we forget that it cut both ways. It could be a hit at my self-esteem but it’s also an opportunity to build myself up. I understand that I am not going to satisfy everyone and some people will just hate my gut, but I know that there are also people that support and love me in my life and that’s what that matters. People are going to criticise you but it’s up to you to be the bigger person.

13. It’s okay to challenge your belief.

I grew up with beliefs that I just had to follow and I was never allowed to question them. Nowadays, we follow things blindly without knowing why we do so other than the fact that it’s widely accepted as a norm. I realise that belief isn’t fixed, it’s fluid. By challenging my beliefs, I acquired knowledge in opposing viewpoints and matters I lacked understanding in. With this, I was able to form my own opinions and beliefs. Just because we don’t understand something, it does not mean that it is not a valid opinion. Personally, I learnt a lot from the ‘Twitterverse’. I learnt about subjects that are considered “taboo”. Our society tends to label a subject they’re not well informed on as “taboo” and that’s just plain ignorant. We grow better as a society when we discuss matters instead of shutting down different opinions.

14. Some people are not meant to stay around.

Some people are just toxic. It is very hard to let go of someone you’ve attached yourself to, but when you do, you’ll thank yourself endlessly. We forget that there are so many people out there that we are yet to meet and can still provide us with what we’ve lost or yearned for. You determine your own outcome.

15. Fear is an illusion.

More than I’d like to admit, fear has stopped me from doing things that I wanted to do. Fear of failure, rejection and people made me a really insecure and self-destructive person. I used to beat myself up over the smallest mistakes and now I know I don’t deserve that. Fear can’t be eradicated completely but you can choose to stop it from dictating your life. One trick I learnt is, before doing something or overthinking something, I’d just count to 3 and do it. Once you’ve done it, it isn’t as bad as you thought it would be.

16. Don’t resist something you enjoy.

This isn’t even a life lesson, this is just an excuse to eat junk food without feeling guilty.

17. Don’t follow the crowd.

Most adults I know have told me this, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a victim of following the crowd at any point in my life. This was definitive for me when I was deciding what I want to study in college and I realise that if I end up doing something that someone else wanted or preferred, I would never be happy (and probably never be successful in what I was told to do). Nobody wants to end up living someone else’s dream. Do what you like, have your own experiences, and learn from your own experiences.

18. Just do it.

This is last, but it’s not the least. It’s the most important to me. I thought about writing this blog post for about six months, and eventually I just told myself to just do it. This life lesson also helped me in reinforcing my decision for what to do in college. I know with hard work and determination, anyone can do it. Nothing’s too difficult or complex in the end.

Eighteen. That’s how old I am. Yes, I’m that person that starts a blog after getting out of high school. This blog is a justified outlet for me to make use of all those idioms and long words I learnt in high school. I may end up sounding like an angsty teenager but you’re still here reading this, so no judgement. Everything I’ve typed above is vague to everyone else, but it’s incredibly personal to me (and also because I have a flair for making things seem more dramatic). Everyone takes away something different from what I’ve typed and I hope I did at least give someone out there hope that everything will be okay in the end, no matter how impossible your circumstances feel.

I definitely will be posting a lot more on this blog and albeit my command in English grammar isn’t the best, it’s still a work in progress. I hope that you, the reader, will stick around for this journey cause this shit is serious.