I've finally found some time to blog and do some random things without feeling too guilty about it. I must say that in all my years of studying, I have never EVER mugged this hard. In fact, I've never thought it possible that I could mug this hard. It's a very healthy mixture of fear and hope. To much fear can paralyse, but hope gives you the faith in your abilities. To hope too much can make cause complacency, but fear gives you a good reality check.
Though I think nowadays, it is fear that is stronger...and hope? I think it's more of ambition. Ambition is more cocky and confident-sounding than hope, linguistically speaking. Hope conjures the image of a dreamy idealist who sits around all day wishing for the best. Ambition reminds me those hard-working and determined individuals, those who probably identify with eagles and lions.
The fear that brought my senses back to me
One of my closest friend jokingly said to me, "Everyone is about to finish running and you just started?" I know she meant no harm, but it created a pang of fear in me so great that it was the closest I've come to having a panic attack. The number of "what if"s that came up in that moment. "What if it's too late?" is the one that screams the loudest to me. I mean, I do consider myself more of a realist nowadays and I take great pride in it. The question "What if I had done ___ differently?" doesn't really occur to me anymore since I have come to terms with the fact that "What's done is done. You cannot change the past. You can only alter the future." But even now, the former question is becoming less impactful. So what if it's too late? I'm not going to stop working. I have regretted too much in my teenage years and next year, I'm already turning 20. Regret is something I'm horribly accustomed to, but it has also taught me a lot. Time to start taking these lessons to heart, eh?
Anyway, I'm not working now because I had a mock Math paper today and no matter how hard I try to do more work, my brain won't take it. It's actually throbbing in pain and I'm not about to kill myself for the little amount of reward I'm going to get from this terribly inefficient session. I must say, apart from Vectors, I am getting full marks across the board. But no, this blog isn't about things like that.
I've changed...I don't know how, but I like it.
It's quite funny to remember that barely a month ago, I was struggling to keep myself together. Once again, just like that year with PSLE, I am a person who pulls together amazingly when the stress becomes overwhelming...like a survival instinct. Every single cell in my body comes together and decides "You know what? We are done watching this dreadfully entertaining drama. This time to get the act together."
It's really, really amazing how my brain does it. I can't even comprehend it.
In a snap, I came to terms with something I couldn't for a long time. And you know what the scariest thing is? I can't even tell whether that used to be an act, or I just changed enough for it to seem not "me" anymore. That whole pinning, whining, self-pitying...it doesn't disgust me...it just feels alien to me. I do have a theory though, like I do for everything.
It all revolves the theme of "SELF-CONFIDENCE".
It's all so cliched, but cliches are made because they are universally applicable, and so very human. I've found back my self-confidence. I tried to get it from other people, to cling, to pine, to thirst for acceptance. What a bloody cliche. The only acceptance I needed was from myself. I couldn't...wouldn't...accept myself for what I am. And it was so simple, so bloody textbook. And to accept myself, I have to face my fears...my failures. No, not to suppress, not to throw them away. I have to accept them, acknowledge them.
I have failed, I know, academically. I can do much better than this, I know, so I must take action. Success may not come to people who work hard, but it never comes for people who don't. Even until now, I believe that I am not living for myself, but if I cannot handle myself, then how can I handle others? I wanted someone to put me back together. I gave someone the power. It was a foolish decision. Yes, I did trust the wrong person, but that wasn't the problem. No matter who I trusted, it wouldn't have worked. I broke myself apart, I will put myself back together.
"Accept your past without regret."
After CT2, I tried to hide my scores from my mom, but in actuality, I hid it from myself. I did not want to see my own failures. I did not want to accept it, that I...that someone who has always been praised for natural capacity for learning, can fail this badly. It's not bragging, I don't feel like it's something to brag about. Those who are born with learning disabilities, their failures are sometimes inevitable. I cannot use such excuses.
Why do I always look back to Primary School? 267 for PSLE without studying. Distinction for all ABRSM Piano Grades from 1 to 6. Silver Award for Singapore Mathematical Olympiad for Primary School (SMOPS) with no training. What changed? Why couldn't I attain these anymore? It's very simple. Confidence. Not once have I ever failed in Primary School. The very idea of failure was foreign. So when I first failed in RGS, it hit me harder than anything in the world. The entire notion of a rose-coloured world fell apart. It took so many years for me to find back that confidence.
No, it is an improvement. In Primary School, it was pure, snarky arrogance, the kind you saw in Draco Malfoy. Now, it is confidence, the confidence that through hard work, I can become better. No, not better than those around me, but better than I was yesterday.
And so, after lying in bed for 5 hours, thinking about whether I should cheat my way out of signing the progress report, I closed my eyes momentarily and got up. If I lied, if I cheated, it's not only towards my mom, but to myself. If I wanted to redeem myself, to do well for A levels, to gain back confidence, I need to stop lying to myself. Yes, I failed. Yes, I did horribly. So what will I do about it now? Hey, I call myself an INFJ right? Start looking into the future.
When my mother signed the report, she cried - silently sobbed. And that was when the second moment of realisation hit me. Mom, the one person I would die to protect under any circumstance. How ironic that it was ultimately me that made her cry. My dad can say all kinds of horrid things to her, hit her and she will maintain that stony face and glare back icily. In the end, it was me who broke her strength. If I want my mother to be happy, I have to work hard. And that was my second realisation.
Just by signing a progress report, I not only found in myself the ability to accept my past failures and allow those to spurn me forward, I also reinforced my goals and redirected myself in life. I may still fail, but now I know that I won't run away or crumble. Just like I did with Prelims, I won't cry and worry about hiding it. I will take it as a lesson and move on from there. I suppose then, that I've matured in the area of "acceptance of failure".
"Handle your presence with confidence."
"What if it's too late to work hard?"
It could be, but does it matter? If you lose your confidence, if you believe that it is too late, then it really is too late. Fear does me nothing in this case but wrong. It clogs my thoughts, it makes me panic, it distracts me. But I find that on the bed, whenever I panic, what comes after is a rush of inspiration and determination. "Too late?" Well, you never know until the end, do you? If it is too late, then it is out of your control anyway. Stop worrying about what you cannot control and work on what you can control, which is studying efficiently.
"Face your future without fear."
"What if I still fail in the end?"
Then try something else. If everyone is going to kill themselves once they fail, then humans would have been extinct. A levels is a huge milestone in a student's life, but it does not determine whether you should live or die. It just determines how easy your life will be from now on. And like I said, control the now and it will affect your future. Don't speculate your future. It's just like speculating on currency - if you believe, then it will be. Work hard, have confidence and success will come.
What did I see in him?
I always thought a day would come when I look back to those days and laugh at myself, and the day has finally arrived. From every perspective, it seems really ridiculous what had happened. I was pinning after a guy that really doesn't deserve it. What was I being attracted to? ...I really don't know.
I'm not even attempting an insult, I'm past that point. I am just genuinely and honestly confused about what exactly I found attractive. Every single distinct trait of his is actually quite repulsive to me, even to the extent of things he cannot control. It's very mean of me, but I am being rather blunt here. I was reacquainted with this guy from Primary School and though, no, we are not dating and I am not even the least bit interested in doing so, he did open my eyes and made me acknowledge a lot of this.
Ice-skating was the first thing I did with this guy and I was suddenly struck by the fact that "I bloody missed this." It was not just that, obviously. There was a point that I fell on my butt, quite embarrassingly, and he just skated over and laughed. A small issue, yeah, but it revealed so much to me - I hated pretentiously nice people and liked people who dared to be blunt. A "gentleman" would have helped me up or something so very pretentious, but it was actually more heartwarming when he stood next to me laughing as I struggled to get up, then skating away as fast as possible when I tried to push him down. He, like so many of the other Primary School guy friends I met a few weeks ago, had such bright and distinct personalities.
Perhaps it is my fault that I cannot see the personality of the person I liked, but obviously no apology is offered. If I could not see it, then maybe I was not meant to see it. I think that at one point, I was so desperate to see a distinct personality from him, my brain started to make one up. I'm not even trying to make an insult out of that anymore. I'm not saying "oh, he has no personality". I'm saying "I cannot see his personality for the life of me and I'm not going to try to see something that is invisible to me."
And then there was pool and it's the same thing again - realisation. This other Primary School friend of mine is bloody amazing at pool, but I didn't feel that kind of constant annoyance I felt towards that person I "liked" (because now it's pretty clear that I actually didn't). He screwed himself over so many times by doing trick shots and jump shots that were clearly not the best way, but he did them anyway. I was reminded in those instants, when I played pool with the guy I "liked". He is a coward in every single way possible, at least in my eyes. Once again, I must emphasise that I'm not trying to put him down. Maybe it's quite appealing to other girls, I don't know, but I do like guys who know how to joke around, play pranks and take risks.
Why? Well, you see, when the guy laughed at me when I fell, I felt the strong urge to stand up and one-up him. Growth. He made me want to overcome my own weaknesses and prove my worth. When the other guy did trick shots, I realised that I wasn't enjoying myself because of the game, but because of the company. His laughter and joking personality was infectious.
Back then, when I played pool with the guy I thought I liked, I enjoyed the game because it is pool. But now, I enjoyed myself because of who I was playing with and I would have been happy even if it was a game I disliked. That is the difference.
And then I moved past it...almost miraculously
I think somehow, in the back of my mind, I was always aware of all this. Not just in the back of my mind, I think, I had my doubts even on the surface. Yet, I still clung on...why?
I didn't want to grow up.
I am a person who retained into a batch a year younger than me. Maybe in terms of accepting failure and romantic relationships, I was still a quite behind, but I was always very aware of the kind of emotional maturity I had over others. No, not compassion or anything like that. Those are, to me, actually signs of immaturity and over-idealism. I meant emotional maturity in terms of consistency between rationality and emotions. This is a conclusion drawn after a discussion with a certain INTJ over Whatsapp.
I'm not a very openly warm or kind person, both because of upbringing and my own personality. But my emotional maturity comes from the fact that despite being quite an easily emotional person, I've always, since childhood, attempted to find a logical explanation for everything I am feeling. Over time, over the years, I have developed the ability to create consistency between logic and feeling. So instead of being very angry and taking it out on people, I can always find the exact reason why I felt angry, what escalated it and what calmed me down. It's actually a kind of self-awareness I'm advocating for.
For example, I've always said I disliked selfish people, but I do respect them for their decision. However, what I cannot respect and detest are people who are very selfish but genuinely believe in their selflessness. Maybe it's not the way he really is, but the guy that I "liked" comes under this category. He believes himself to be selfless, but every act of selflessness he does seems so shallow and so pretentious...agreeable. It's very on-the-surface, masking a deeply judgemental inner belief. And that to me is a horrendous form of deceit - to make someone think you agree with them and their behaviour, yet actually dislike it on the inside. For example, I have a friend who likes fashion. I didn't go ahead and act like I'm all elated about it, because I don't like it. I stated it very clearly to her that I disagree, but also respected her own opinion. And it is because of that, she says, that she respects me, because I am honestly about it and not pretending to like what she does.
Then things that actually matter to me, in the concept of being selfless, he is painfully selfish. And he doesn't see it! Sometimes I think that something must be wrong with me, because it's so obvious to me that he is so selfish. And he even dares come and ask me about it...that deepens the layer. If you cannot see something that is supposed to matter so much to you...then either 1. I'm wrong and you have no reason to ask me, or 2. you are lying to yourself. Selfishness is not wrong, so a person who wholly believes in being selfless is definitely lying to himself or others.
And how is this relevant? Well, a lot of people in the class has fallen for his deceit and think of him as a very mature person. I'm honestly just sitting there with my eyebrows so high they completely flew off my face because "Really? Are you so blind?" or maybe, like I said, it's just the way I see him. It doesn't matter. Not going to pursue that matter. But the matter I am pursuing is that, in my own eyes, I am already more mature than people my age when it comes to self-awareness and consistency of logic and emotions. To admit that my crush was just a game to entertain myself means that I deepen that level of consistency and extend it to the romantic category. I don't want to feel so much older than the others.
It is then denial, the need to fit in, that drove me to pine for so long. It is rather regretful that I allowed myself to be drawn too much into my own game that it permeated into my other problems. I'm just glad that this whole nonsense is over.
Where to go from here
I have come to terms with my own level of maturity, which I am aware is a few years older than me. But through interacting with my Primary School friends, most of which are older than me (note that they are out of NS by the way), I feel like I am no longer in any danger of wanting to deny myself of that maturity. After all, I sought their advice and I felt like, for once, these are people who are on the same page as me.
I have come to terms with my own failures and know that I have to work hard, and I'm working hard. I am scared of failing, but it will not stop me from working. I do feel like at this point, even if I fail, I will be able to cope with it, on my own, and not fall into the spiral of clinging and clinging onto someone else. I've found my self-confidence back, the one that was lost almost 6-7 years ago.
