New Year Eve

Today is the last day of 2014 and I cannot believe how fast time has flown by and how much I have changed in the past two years.  I am watching a Vietnamese music video that my mom bought and watched countless times a decade ago and I noticed how my thought process is much different than ten years earlier.  A decade ago, I would concentrate on how I feel about the song rather than the technical parts of the song such as the lyrics, instruments, vocal, etc.  I played the piano back then but as a teenager and being a girl with tons of hormones, my focus was definitely not on the importance of the video; believe me I wasn't dumb back then or anything, I mean I was very serious about school and strived to get good grades but it was a time in my life where the important things in life were not important. Go figure.

There has to be a reason behind this change and I believe I know the answer to it.

Researchers claimed the brain is plastic and it can be molded and improved over the years if the individual puts effort into it. With this, I myself is an evidence.  I still have a lot to work on as a person but I do feel the difference how I view life and many other aspects in life. My brain is much more open to new ideas and experiences.  I have a college degree but I would not give it all the credit to helping me grow; what helps me is my experiences in life.  My professional and personal experiences have shaped me to be a better person and pushed me to be a person I need to be.  So yes, the brain does grow no matter how old a person is. The key is to actively work at doing activities that would help the brain grows.

Self-Improvement

I discovered the keys to make self-improvement works: doing whatever you want to improve on and not give a care about what people think.  People will give you looks, glares, mocking faces, frowns, laughs, odd and uncomfortable faces that make sure you see it and acknowledge.  I used to get offended easily about it and would brood over the reactions but as time passes, I discover my hurt is not helping me to better myself and in fact, it is a hindrance that stops me from doing what I need to do in order to get better at something. In order to get good at anything, one has to keep practicing even if a I might not see the improvement in the initial stage.  Expertise is not developed over night, it's developed over a period of time and any smart students know this; I think this bit of wisdom comes from experiences rather than something I truly understand later, it's one of those "aha" experience that we grasped and truly understand it over times.

Self-improvement is necessary in all walk of life and it is especially crucial in the teen and young adult years (eg people who are in their 20s, 30s) since they are trying to find who they are. It's not easy since we will encounter obstacles in all paths we turn to but things do get better.  People will look and make judgements no matter where we turn to, people will talk about you no matter what.  What is the best thing we can do? Like Taylor Swift says, "I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake it off, shake it off" and continue to do what is needed to be done


Quote of the day: "People are going to talk about you.  But maybe you're having more fun than them anyway."--Taylor Swift, People, October 2014

Patience With the Self

The past few weeks have been filled with many ups and downs, and there were days where I want to quit everything and run away to a place where people would not bother me.  I wanted to quit my job, I wanted to leave my family and move elsewhere there is no more hardships and no one to get on my nerve.  This week is definitely better at work, I shared my anxiety with some coworkers and they seemed to understand and acknowledged it, and the atmosphere in the family is more calm despite the regular small bickering that every family is prone to have, and it gives me peace to know my family is back to a normal state.

Life is definitely an endless journey that is filled with bumps and rocks that we all have to pass by.  When I thought everything is fine, another problem arises and takes my peace away.  During my exercise session, the thought of the future lurks itself out and I find myself to get anxious over what road should I take in the near future.  The thought of who I should marry, what career path should I take, how will I support myself, what if I date someone and we break up, what if I marry someone in the future and get a divorce like half of the clients all appear.  I was not able to listen to NPR like I generally do while doing some exercise at home.  Then it hits me that this is a part of the journey of life.  Life is and will always be filled with obstacles that I have no control over what will happen and all I have to do is accept it for what it really is and enjoy the ride.  Being patient with my learning self is crucial on this trek and being able to enjoy ride won't be easy but keeping my focus will help tremendously.