staringblanklyataplant

[staringblanklyataplant]

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it has been a long time since i last journalled, mainly because life hasn’t been the most interesting ever since i graduated from eighteen years of formal education straight into the most mundane job in the world. also whenever i journal online i get this feeling of anxiety because it feels like i have an obligation to reflect myself as a happy go lucky person with the most positive attitude and mindset. today (and through a certain amount of anonymity) i will finally get down to jotting my emotions down again, before it gets the better of me.

i remember clearly how whenever there were those choose-one-word-to-describe-yourself questions i would always pick “positive” or “happy-go-lucky”, but those days are long gone. i think things started going downhill the day i realised that i was going to do accountancy in uni - and move on to an accountancy related career thereafter. eighteen years of young me anticipating what the future potentially had to offer was honestly a flop, sort of like a misleading movie trailer with the fanciest buildup. everything i said or did in my whole lifetime led up to the disappointing moment when i chose to enroll in accountancy at nus. school was a chore - getting into a straight As course without straight As meant that i was automatically in the bottom quartile of the cohort, let alone it being a course that i despised. there was so much stigma against accountancy that media portrayed, how it is the most boring job in the world but it pays well (which i now learnt that the latter is completely bullshit). when i was younger i didn’t know what i wanted to do when i grew up, but i definitely knew that i did not want to be an office worker with a 9 to 5 job. i mean at least i got half of it right - it is most definitely NOT a 9 to 5 job. 

i remember the first half of uni being my most depressing days, even though i often portrayed myself as a motivated and positive minded individual in school and in hall. my junior college friends were ganging up against me, i wasn’t enjoying what i was learning and in turn, this led to getting poor results in school. i recall one particular night, probably during the peak of my depressed state (that oxymoron) i broke down so hard in front of my mom. i was talking to my parents about how i was forced to do accountancy by them, mainly my father. being the stubborn self-righteous asian dad he was (and still is), he said, no full-on scolded me with something along the lines of “hey, we gave you the choices, you were the one who applied for them in the end, don’t go blaming on us when things don’t go your way”. what i wanted to do was something in the field of design or life sciences, which might or might not be in Singapore’s big three unis. design? oh the job market is saturated. life sciences? oh you’ll be stuck with research (which now that i think about it isn’t half bad at all, well, if you compare it to accountancy). things that i wanted to do slowly got struck off the list. what was i left with? dentistry, pharmacy, architecture - all of which are straight As courses and the closest things there were to arts or life sciences. and then we have accountancy and business - literally the only courses left after striking out sciences, (and the two that i actually strongly chose not to do)  computing and engineering. i KNOW if i did end up applying for courses that my dad struck out, i would have to face years and years of “why didn’t you do what i told you to” or “you will regret this, i told you so”. i was a naive kid, one that did not dare to stand up to her parents or even have her own opinions at home because any opinion that did not match my father’s would just lead to scolding and a bitter look of disdain from my mother. but what good does being an abiding child bring when all i did was cry myself to sleep almost every night knowing that the remaining of my youth has been ruined by the very people whom i thought only wanted the best for me?

being around motivated people has made me reflect upon myself and realise how little i have achieved in my life. while i have to give myself credit for pushing through 4 years of doing a bachelors in something that wasnt my first, second, third but fourth choice, i should probably stop giving the excuse of being forced to do something i didnt want to as a reason not to excel in a field. everyone started off the same. we are of the same age now yet look how different we are. definitely the environment people grow up in plays a part in defining their character. but what i do is i take the environment to blame. but blaming literally does not do anything. still leaves me as a person who has much i want to achieve yet not taking steps to achieve them. i am constantly in search of a catalyst, but the catalyst is myself after all. i have been pushing back everything and i am already 24. thinking back (as i always do), i think about how i should have done this and should have done that. and think of all the regrets i have for not starting on something while i was younger. but who says i am not still young? being around motivated people really makes me want to be as motivated as them. what do they have that i do not have? literally nothing. there are people out there who start off worse than me but are doing so much better now. i have said it many times but maybe this time i mean it for once - it is time for a change in attitude. sure i am not enjoying what i am doing now. but who says i cant excel in it? otherwise, who says i cant make a switch? i am always so worried of stability that i end up being so stable. what do i get in the end of it all? retirement? will i be happy then, knowing of all the other things i could have done in my lifetime but didnt? like how i look back now and think of all i could have done while i was still in school and had no responsibilities? what i have now is time and health.