Fascinating how 'Unfriended' is actually a real word now, thanks to Facebook. I know it drives you grammer Nazis crazy, but you're just going to have to deal with it.
It's not often that anything really interesting ever happens in my life, which is why unfortunatelly I don't have much to blog about (I do intend to get a phone with mobile internet soon, so hopefully my rather dying blogs will be revived soon since I will be able to update them anytime and anywhere). But recently I have had to undergo quite a bit of drama in my life which was completely unnecessary, all of which was the result of a male friend of mine whom I knew since secondary high school through to university. And while usually I wouldn't blog about personal issues I have with people, this episode was so hilarious, I just couldn't resist, and since I have 'unfriended' this person, it doesn't really matter to me anymore what he thinks about me or this post.
Said friend of mine is gay, currently having a gay partner, very effeminate and is 10 times more gossipy than the gossipiest female I have ever known. I have never had any issues with his sexuality and I am able to tolerate effeminate behaviour from men even though I do find it somewhat annoying, not just from him but from any effeminate member of the male species (I'm sorry, it's just the way I am), and for some reason I managed to tolerate his love to gossip, which I also found somewhat annoying. I did not keep in touch with him often since high school, but in the past couple of years, he was inviting me out to meet up with our mutual friends every now and then. It's during these events and also through our online conversations on Facebook that we occasionally 'misunderstood each other'. Actually, it was more like he seemed to enjoy misinterpreting everything I said and turning things around to mean something else. For example, during one of our meet-ups, he asked me and another friend a question about what we thought are the benefits of dating older men. And I said, for one, older guys are more mature, and number two, older guys usually are more financially secure, which are both perfectly reasonable answers to that question. Then for God knows what reason, my friend gets all uptight on how I could be so superficial to say that money is one of the primary things I look for in a relationship....which of course, isn't what I meant at all. He asked a question about benefits of dating older men, and I just said financial security is what of them, which is far from saying that I would date a guy primarily for money. But anyhow, that whole whacked up idea of his ended up on his FB page and I wasted a good portion of my life explaining myself to him on that FB thread. That is just ONE example of the many ways he love to misinterpret things I say. And yet, I was still able to be friends with him because I give people the benefit of the doubt and assumed that he just has a really.... unusual way of seeing things. Either that or he's just socially inept. So bygones.
However, it was accumulation of events like these that led to a recent dramatic episode that was SO frustrating and yet eventually hilariously amusing to me, and although I am so tempted to go the completely juvenile way of blogging about every single annoying/hilarious detail of the events that transpired and poking fun at my so-called friend along the way (I even considered posting details of our smses, but that would require me to fix up his terrible spelling and grammatical errors in his smses coz' it seems he does not know how to use auto-type/spell check), I decided that that's not the proper thing for an adult to do. Instead, I will go the somewhat juvenile way of just summarizing what happened and try my very best to keep the snide comments about this person to a minimum. It will be difficult, trust me.
My friend, whom I shall term PsychoKid (since that's part of his email address, and I think it's most appropriate now) or PK for short, recently arranged another meet up with one of our old lecturers for our uni days with some other friends, one of which is a girl friend of ours, Eileen. I couldn't make it for the event, but she went with a couple of other friends. After the thing ended, on the same night, I received an sms from PK, saying some along the lines of how he has 'social issues' with me and hopes we can revert to the way we were before, but he claimed that our friend Eileen also raised some issues about me, saying that I had become difficult to talk to, and she 'speculated' that I'm arrogant because of my salary (which really, isn't something to brag about) and desperate for a man because of something I posted on my blog or FB (which I really had no idea what post he was talking about), and in several other smses continued to tell me other negative things that Eileen had purportedly said about me, saying that this goes to show that he is not the only person who has issues with me and I should get a raincheck on my own behaviour.
Naturally, I was highly annoyed and had difficulty believing what he told me about what our friend said about me, because I know this girl, and she is one of the nicest, sweetest and friendliest people I know and we get along just fine. And I told him point blank that I highly doubted that he understood correctly what Eileen said about me, and I also told him to stop telling me stuff she 'supposedly' said. Coz' it was getting really annoying, and I would talk to her myself to hear it from her. That same night, while chatting online with another girl friend, I found out that she also knew PK before in school (small world!), and she told me that he had tried to create strife between her and another friend before. Which made me realize that he was probably doing the exact same thing...but just to be sure, I wanted to check with Eileen.
The next day, I try to call my friend. She does not pick up the phone at first, which confuses me, but soon I get an sms from her apologizing for what PK said to me and saying that she had reached her limit with him. After more smses, I realized that she was scared to answer my call because PK had smsed her to WARN her that I would be angry with her because of what he told me. And this was why she was angry with him. After reassuring her that I was not mad with her in any way because I didn't believe PK at all, she called me and we had a WONDERFUL sessions of lambasting our 'friend'. When I told her all the negative things he claimed that she had said about me, she was in disbelief, and confirmed that although she had made some related comments, he had taken everything out of context to make it sound negative.
As a result, both of us decided we had had enough of PK, and we have both cut off contact with him by 'unfriending' him (there's that awful grammatically incorrect word again!) from Facebook, removing him from our chat messengers, and she even deleted his handphone number... but I kept it just coz' I want to know when it's him trying to contact me. But while she decided to just be quiet about it and not let him know, I just send him one last message (well, almost last) saying that I had no doubt that he was trying to create problems between me and Eileen, and as such I no longer consider him a friend, so that would be the last time I would contact him. I also said that the way he was now, he would lose all his friends soon unless he worked through his insecurities or whatever the reason it is that he likes creating unnecessary problems. I think it was very amicable message, considering the circumstances.
I was hoping that once he realized both I and Eileen had decided to cut off our friendship with him, that he would realize the error of his ways and at least apologize to us. I mean, he IS a long-time friend or mine, and I would have been glad to forgive and forget if he had realized that using the name of another friend to justify his warped negative ideas about me was wrong. It also would have been a nice way to end this blog post.
Well, that didn't happen.
Next day, (this is after learning that we had both 'unfriended' him. He was no doubt pulling his hair out coz' I know he hates it when he's 'unfriended' on FB, which I find totally amusing) he smses me saying that it doesn't matter if Eileen and I are not his friends because he has MANY more friends than me, and some other stuff about how all these problems would not have happened if he never invited me for his (silly) social events (he takes pride in organizing these things, I guess coz' it he likes feeling like a socialite).
And at this point, I apologize that I am about to go really the way of the juvenile, coz' my reply to him to him was so snide that I feel like a character out of the movie 'Mean Girls'. But seriously, I couldn't help myself, it was too much fun. This was my reply and hopefully my last sms to him:
"Sorry to contradict my last sms where I said that's the last time you'll hear from me but just needed to say go see how many Facebook friends I have compared to you before you spout more baseless nonsense like every other story you love to invent in your brain. And before you get some idea that I simply add any Abu, Ahmad or Ah Cheng on FB, all 523 of my friends (3.3x more than your 158 friends) are only people I know personally, I don't add or approve friend request from anyone I have never met. So it would be funny to hear what makes you think you have more friends than me, except that I don't really care to hear more nonsense from you, so please do save your sms money".
Now I know that number of FB friends really is a terrible way of justifying how many friends I have than anyone, but you know, I just really wanted to annoy him. And boy, it's really rare that I am that mean to anyone, but when it's to someone who deserves it, it sure is fun.
Still, I do hope that the last time I ever have to 'unfriend' someone for silly reasons like this. :S
Monday, February 20, 2012
Monday, November 14, 2011
Jade vs. Hope
I like to think everybody has some form of split or multiple personality thing going on that they keep hidden (sometimes not so well hidden) from the rest of the world. Not to the point of switching between different personalities without warning or control, coz' that's just freaky. More like having two different parts of yourself that are sometimes or even regularly at loggerheads with each other... or sometimes being so engrossed in your own thoughts that you imagine your two selves having a conversation with each other...of course this is usually only interesting when you're undergoing some kind of internal conflict or weighing the pros and cons of a decision, or something like that. Well, I don't know if everyone has such a thing going on, but like I said, I like to think everyone does (and doesn't admit it) coz' then that makes me less weird.
I don't talk to myself, but I find more and more that I like to have mental conversations with myself. I picture two different personas, both of whom I have actually given names, i.e. as per the title of this post. The names should be telling in itself. Jade is jaded with life and the 'wilder' persona, and Hope never stops hoping that things will turn out just the way she...well... hopes. The usual topics that lead to discord between the two are relationships with people and faith in God. Sometimes Jade and Hope are just having a rather amicable conversation, albeit with disagreements. Sometimes, I envision them getting into total girl fights with each other. Depending on my mood and sense of adventure, I might imagine some warrior princess battle-like thing going on, complete with broadswords and the armour with boobs (of course I also imagine my two personas looking way hotter than I actually do in real life. I prefer to imagine them as Manga characters), or a ninja showdown, or we're mutants with power to blast fire balls from our hands and try to fry each other. I've stopped at the mental image of half naked female mud fights, although I suspect now that thought will be in your head for this post. My personas even have favourite colours, Jade's being green and Hope's is pink. Don't ask me why.
I've been playing around with the idea of starting another blog, just so I can allow these two to take it out on the new blog, and the conversations I would have with myself would be ...I'm not quite sure how I would manage another blog though, since I already have two and even then I have lack of time or inspiration to update either. So for the moment, I think the new blog idea isn't going to happen. But just in case you see some posts in future here about conversations between some girls named Jade and Hope and you're wondering what the heck is going on... well, now you know.
And that is my eyebrow raising post for today. Have a great week!
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
The Many (Meaningless?) Things I Wanna Do in My Life
Since my previous post about having no overall plan for my life, I was thinking to neutralize the 'sad'-ness of that thought (if you're one those who think it's sad that I have no plan) I wanted to write about some of my aspirations, i.e. things I wanna do sometime in my life just for the experience. Just because I don't have a overall direction for my life doesn't mean there aren't things I want to do along the way why figuring out where I'm going. :P It's just the actual long-term planning of how and when I'm going to do these things that I haven't done.... and maybe will never get round to doing for reasons I will explain later.
So I actually sat down and made a list of stuff I want to do at some point in my life, most of which are related to experiencing nature and wildlife, some involves a bit of adventure, some about performing, and some are just plain silly romantic. And after doing a raincheck of my life so far, I'm happy to say that I actually have done quite a few things that I have had wanted to do at some point before. Most of things I have 'accomplished' in my life came not out of long-term planning but from an opportunity that came about that made it much more convenient to do what I want to do.... like a lot of stuff I did in Australia would not have happened if I didn't get a scholarship which allowed my dad to afford to send me to Aus for a year (during which I spent quite a bit of his money during fun stuff....but I still had some left to give back to him when I got home. Heh). And my swim with dolphins would never have happened if I didn't get send to Papua New Guinea for a work trip.
For example, some of the stuff I have wanted to do sometime in my life, and I have already done it:
1) Try sky diving (Brisbane, Australia, year 2004)
2) Learn how to scuba dive
3) Swim with dolphins (Papua New Guinea, late 2009)
4) Learn how to play guitar (not the best player, but I at least I can make some music come out of the dang thing)
5) Visit a roller coaster theme park and ride all the extremest rides (Cedar Point, Cleveland, this year)
6) Visit a Hillsong conference (Sydney, Australia, 2004)
7) Travel in Australia (travelled all 5 major Aussie cities in less than a year) and see real kangaroos and other native Aussia wildlife (almost got into a boxing match with a roo after my bag of food and that was painful and fun at the same time. :p)
8) Work in an area related to environmental conservation (not exactly in the field that I was thinking of, but it's somewhat related)
9) Perform (sing, act, whatever) on stage (done this many times in college and church)
10) Slow danced with a guy I really like, among other romantic things (^_^)
And then here are the things I have wanted to do sometime in my life, but have not done yet:
1) Try bungee jumping
2) Visit Galapagos Island
3) Visit the African Safari
4) Make tonnes of money through blogging, or at least enough money to live a comfy life
5) Buy an underwater camera and become an awesome underwater photographer
6) Get married and live in a small house with a big garden so we can have many dogs and less area of house to clean
7) Make a wedding portrait of hubby and I made such that we look 60-70 years old as a reminder of our goal to stay together always no matter how old and wrinkly and cranky we get
8) Start a church dance class/ ministry (after I learn to dance a lot better than I do now)
9) Write a fantasy novel with a female protagonist named Naeem, or Naima or something like that coz' I always though the name is cool
10) Record at least one song in studio that is good enough to be played on radio even if it never is
11) Fit back into the jeans I wore when I was 16.
12) Have a romantic stroll on a beach with special guy under a starry and windless night (don't want too much sand blowing around in case things get extra romantic)
13) Learn CPR
14) Be a manager/ researcher for a zoo (preferably Singapore Zoo)
15) Be part of a flash mob (this is a relatively new aspiration)
16) Volunteer regularly at an animal shelter
Looking at this 2nd list, there are things that would be really difficult to do just because it would be really expensive (particularly those involving travelling), some will remain an unattainable dream unless I give up my current job (like full time blogging or working at the zoo!) , others I don't dare to start on due to lack of motivation or belief in my own capability to do a good job (write a book? How screwed up would that end up? Don't even talk about the dance ministry idea, that might just be hilarious)... and then there are those which are relatively simple things I could start doing tomorrow, if not for pure laziness or lack of time.
What's missing from that list is a desire to do something that will make a difference in people's lives, the closest thing being starting a dance ministry which I have my own inhibitions about since I'm not a great dancer anyway and it's probably more to feed my own interest in performing than anything else, really. I feel a bit bad that I honestly can't put in anything in there about wanting to make a difference because to be perfectly honest with myself, I'm jaded enough that a part of me doesn't really care to get too close to people. On the other hand, there is the part of me that wants to get over that and just learn to open up and learn to care for people. Coz' at the end of the day, even if I do accomplish every single one of those things on my dream to-do list, most of it was for my own experience and pleasure, which really makes no difference to anyone else. After all, no one's going to write on my tombstone that "Here lies Carol, who jumped out of a airplace one, swam with dolphins and was part of a really funny flash mob". I get this annoying sentiment that Solomon had in the book of Ecclesiastes (which I just read through today for the fun of it while writing this). The feeling that everything is meaningless. Like you work and toil through your life and have a good time every now and then, but in the end, everything is meaningless, like chasing the wind.
Nevertheless, even though I doubt my ability to make a difference in people's lives as well as get round to doing all the things I want to try and do at least once in my life, I still have the hope that it will happen... that someone I can change and motivate myself to get out there and just do it because whatever the thing is that fuels my hopes and ambitions run dry.
Lol, I didn't mean for this post to turn into such deep stuff. Perhaps I really need to just stop over-analyzing my life then I will have more time to do the things I wanna do. :P
So I actually sat down and made a list of stuff I want to do at some point in my life, most of which are related to experiencing nature and wildlife, some involves a bit of adventure, some about performing, and some are just plain silly romantic. And after doing a raincheck of my life so far, I'm happy to say that I actually have done quite a few things that I have had wanted to do at some point before. Most of things I have 'accomplished' in my life came not out of long-term planning but from an opportunity that came about that made it much more convenient to do what I want to do.... like a lot of stuff I did in Australia would not have happened if I didn't get a scholarship which allowed my dad to afford to send me to Aus for a year (during which I spent quite a bit of his money during fun stuff....but I still had some left to give back to him when I got home. Heh). And my swim with dolphins would never have happened if I didn't get send to Papua New Guinea for a work trip.
For example, some of the stuff I have wanted to do sometime in my life, and I have already done it:
1) Try sky diving (Brisbane, Australia, year 2004)
2) Learn how to scuba dive
3) Swim with dolphins (Papua New Guinea, late 2009)
4) Learn how to play guitar (not the best player, but I at least I can make some music come out of the dang thing)
5) Visit a roller coaster theme park and ride all the extremest rides (Cedar Point, Cleveland, this year)
6) Visit a Hillsong conference (Sydney, Australia, 2004)
7) Travel in Australia (travelled all 5 major Aussie cities in less than a year) and see real kangaroos and other native Aussia wildlife (almost got into a boxing match with a roo after my bag of food and that was painful and fun at the same time. :p)
8) Work in an area related to environmental conservation (not exactly in the field that I was thinking of, but it's somewhat related)
9) Perform (sing, act, whatever) on stage (done this many times in college and church)
10) Slow danced with a guy I really like, among other romantic things (^_^)
And then here are the things I have wanted to do sometime in my life, but have not done yet:
1) Try bungee jumping
2) Visit Galapagos Island
3) Visit the African Safari
4) Make tonnes of money through blogging, or at least enough money to live a comfy life
5) Buy an underwater camera and become an awesome underwater photographer
6) Get married and live in a small house with a big garden so we can have many dogs and less area of house to clean
7) Make a wedding portrait of hubby and I made such that we look 60-70 years old as a reminder of our goal to stay together always no matter how old and wrinkly and cranky we get
8) Start a church dance class/ ministry (after I learn to dance a lot better than I do now)
9) Write a fantasy novel with a female protagonist named Naeem, or Naima or something like that coz' I always though the name is cool
10) Record at least one song in studio that is good enough to be played on radio even if it never is
11) Fit back into the jeans I wore when I was 16.
12) Have a romantic stroll on a beach with special guy under a starry and windless night (don't want too much sand blowing around in case things get extra romantic)
13) Learn CPR
14) Be a manager/ researcher for a zoo (preferably Singapore Zoo)
15) Be part of a flash mob (this is a relatively new aspiration)
16) Volunteer regularly at an animal shelter
Looking at this 2nd list, there are things that would be really difficult to do just because it would be really expensive (particularly those involving travelling), some will remain an unattainable dream unless I give up my current job (like full time blogging or working at the zoo!) , others I don't dare to start on due to lack of motivation or belief in my own capability to do a good job (write a book? How screwed up would that end up? Don't even talk about the dance ministry idea, that might just be hilarious)... and then there are those which are relatively simple things I could start doing tomorrow, if not for pure laziness or lack of time.
What's missing from that list is a desire to do something that will make a difference in people's lives, the closest thing being starting a dance ministry which I have my own inhibitions about since I'm not a great dancer anyway and it's probably more to feed my own interest in performing than anything else, really. I feel a bit bad that I honestly can't put in anything in there about wanting to make a difference because to be perfectly honest with myself, I'm jaded enough that a part of me doesn't really care to get too close to people. On the other hand, there is the part of me that wants to get over that and just learn to open up and learn to care for people. Coz' at the end of the day, even if I do accomplish every single one of those things on my dream to-do list, most of it was for my own experience and pleasure, which really makes no difference to anyone else. After all, no one's going to write on my tombstone that "Here lies Carol, who jumped out of a airplace one, swam with dolphins and was part of a really funny flash mob". I get this annoying sentiment that Solomon had in the book of Ecclesiastes (which I just read through today for the fun of it while writing this). The feeling that everything is meaningless. Like you work and toil through your life and have a good time every now and then, but in the end, everything is meaningless, like chasing the wind.
Nevertheless, even though I doubt my ability to make a difference in people's lives as well as get round to doing all the things I want to try and do at least once in my life, I still have the hope that it will happen... that someone I can change and motivate myself to get out there and just do it because whatever the thing is that fuels my hopes and ambitions run dry.
Lol, I didn't mean for this post to turn into such deep stuff. Perhaps I really need to just stop over-analyzing my life then I will have more time to do the things I wanna do. :P
Monday, September 26, 2011
No Plan
It's time for the annual raincheck on my life. Not that I've been doing this annually, just that it sounds better than occasional raincheck on my life.
I'm 28 years old, and will be 29 years old in half a year, and then I will be 30 years old in another year, by which time I can no longer pass as a 'young adult' just starting out in the working world and trying to to figure out what to do with my life but I should already more or less have some sort of plan. Plans that any normal young adult usually has....stuff like aiming for a better work position and getting a higher salary, getting married and starting a family, saving up for my own home, starting a business, maybe even deciding to become a pastor.... stuff like that. At least that's the kind of plan I guess people pass their 30s should have. Although in reality, I'm sure there are many 30-somethings who still don't have a plan. And I've heard a quote by someone who said that at 40 years old he still hasn't figured what he wants to do when he grows up.
Well, right now, I don't really have a plan. And by not having a plan, I mean I don't have have a clue what to do other than continue doing what I have been doing for my whole working life, which I guess so far has been work, go to the gym, go to church on Sunday, serve on Sundays, hang out with friends occasionally, waste time on Facebook, do some fun things every now and then, like travelling, paintballing, scuba diving, and that's pretty much it. It's been working out pretty well so far. But in terms of planning for my long-term future, I haven't been doing much in that respect. I have asked my this question recently... the famous question that potential employers use on employees... where do I see myself in 5 years? And my answer is... probably pretty much the same thing I'm doing right now.
I have been thinking of making a big change, which is moving overseas. My brother who's in the US is encouraging me to go there, or Canada, or Australia. And on surface, given all the complaints people have about this country that is Malaysia, it seems like great idea. The politics suck, the cost of living is skyrocketing, the education system is going to the shits, etc, etc. Why not just get out of here while I still can.
Well, unfortunately to say, I've realized that even though I do have some spark of adventure in me which is the reason why I can jump out of airplanes and go looking for sharks when diving/snorkelling, I still like my comfort zone here in Malaysia. Doing what I've been doing. Yeah, the politics suck, but as long as I can still live my life and the PM isn't trying to blow ME up with dynamite or accuse me of sodomy, I'm ok with the occasionaly drama in the news. Cost of living? Biggest costs are house and car and raising kids. I already have a fully paid, car and I stay with my parents in a cushy condo and not planning to move out unless I get married, and I'm not married which means I have no expensive kids to raise. Otherwise, cost of living is not that bad. Bad education system? Again, no kids, so well, doesn't really affect me.
Yes, I am still thinking that getting out of the country would be worth it. But only if I get married and plan to raise a family, which also means my future imaginery and elusive hubby would have to want to make the move too. As long as I'm single, Malaysia is a pretty cool place to stay in. I have friends and family here, I can watch my nieces grow up, we have great food, shops open way past 5pm, and also it would be a terrible waste to do my diving course this year and then move out of Malaysia (which is next to pretty much all the cool dive spots in the world).
So since I plan to be stuck here for a while, it still means I have no real concrete plan, whether it comes to work, finances, personal life or anything else. How many ways can I possibly have no plan?
Work-wise, I enjoy where I'm at but have been pretty happily plodding along doing my work and hoping for a raise every year. I'm far from the ambitious type where I tell myself I must become manager is x no. of years and at least double my salary or whatever... I just hope for the best and take whatever good I get, whether it be a raise or bonus or whatever. Only recently have I have been feeling stagnant in my area of work (as in I don't think it's getting me anywhere, position-wise) and itching for a change in the main work I do so I get different experience and better future prospects. This is only after almost 3 years in the same job. That change actually could have happened sooner in the almost 3 years since I've been with my current company, but a combination of being already busy with my now stagnating work and my own lack of drive to 'succeed', i.e. work myself up the corporate ladder, lead to the slow progress. But since I've been pretty happy at my job now, I see no reason to leave (part of the reason why I don't want to migrate yet... coz' I need more experience at my work!).
Financially, it's always at the back of my mind that I need to learn how to invest in something reliable. I am currently investing in something through the help of my dad who did all the research on the investment and I'm just along for the ride. But I know I can't rely on him forever and I need to learn how to do my own investments in the future. And since I hate anything to do with finance, except of course, the money itself, learning the tricks of investing in something is scary. Coz' investing is risky and putting my moolah in the wrong place might end up in me losing it. But it's still important, otherwise my moolah will just sit in the bank without growing and that might be difficult when I get to an age when I can't work anymore. Or I actually do start a family and have to raise those money sucking kids. :P My best plan in this area? Marry a guy who is good at financial planning and can help me with investments. Or even better. Marry a damn rich guy who doesn't squander his fortune away. Set for life, baby. >:)
Well, that leads to the next aspect where I have no plan... marriage and family. Kinda hard to plan for that I'm single. Though anything can happen of course, and in five years time I could very well and have met someone and start having little buns baking in the oven. Are there potential guys? Well, yes, there are always potential guys. Whether I will end up with any of them or not is another question. So right now, no plan whatsoever.
And then there's spiritual life. Well, I certainly have no plans to become a pastor, full-time church worker or anything of the sort. Once upon a time I wouldn't mind being married to a pastor if the opportunity came, but now I'm quite sure that will never happen coz' I'm pretty sure I'd make a terrible pastor's wife. On the other hand, I have been having... spiritual issues and was thinking that maybe it's time to go to another church and see what happens. And so was thinking of pulling out of ministries I'm serving in and leaving my current church. But still haven't done it. Mainly coz' I have no plan which church to go to AFTER that. Am kind of occasionally visiting other churchs when I can, to survey the field. It's funny coz' once in the church I went to in Australia, the pastor there, while praying for me, made a prediction that I would become some great woman for God. And everytime I think of that now, I'm just like...hmm... right....
So those are some of the ways where I have no plan in my life. But then I also asked myself... is it really so bad to not have a plan (other than financial planning, which I still consider important no matter what)? I mean, we can plan for stuff but it may not work out the way we want and turn out to be a waste of time (maybe money). Like I usually prefer not to plan for vacations too far ahead of the date, coz' there's another more important event that may come up later at the same time and screw up my plans (happened to me before and I wasted a flight ticket to Thailand!). On the other hand, if I'm content taking each day at a time and hoping for the best, whether it be in my work, personal life or spiritual life, then I may end with things better than I planned or hoped for. And actually I feel like this has what has been happening to me....for example, in my work I have been quite blessed with benefits and favour from my management with I'm not sure I deserve. And in my personal life, I have been blessed with some good friends, and.... I have met a guy whom I really like have great relationship with. But I'm still not sure what will happen between us in the long term, and until I figure it out, he's going to remain a secret. In the meantime, even with having no plan, I still greatly enjoy his company.
Perhaps it sounds bad, but I actually quite enjoy having no plan and enjoying the spontaneity of life. It's been working out for me so far and hopefully it'll continue doing so for a long time. :P
I'm 28 years old, and will be 29 years old in half a year, and then I will be 30 years old in another year, by which time I can no longer pass as a 'young adult' just starting out in the working world and trying to to figure out what to do with my life but I should already more or less have some sort of plan. Plans that any normal young adult usually has....stuff like aiming for a better work position and getting a higher salary, getting married and starting a family, saving up for my own home, starting a business, maybe even deciding to become a pastor.... stuff like that. At least that's the kind of plan I guess people pass their 30s should have. Although in reality, I'm sure there are many 30-somethings who still don't have a plan. And I've heard a quote by someone who said that at 40 years old he still hasn't figured what he wants to do when he grows up.
Well, right now, I don't really have a plan. And by not having a plan, I mean I don't have have a clue what to do other than continue doing what I have been doing for my whole working life, which I guess so far has been work, go to the gym, go to church on Sunday, serve on Sundays, hang out with friends occasionally, waste time on Facebook, do some fun things every now and then, like travelling, paintballing, scuba diving, and that's pretty much it. It's been working out pretty well so far. But in terms of planning for my long-term future, I haven't been doing much in that respect. I have asked my this question recently... the famous question that potential employers use on employees... where do I see myself in 5 years? And my answer is... probably pretty much the same thing I'm doing right now.
I have been thinking of making a big change, which is moving overseas. My brother who's in the US is encouraging me to go there, or Canada, or Australia. And on surface, given all the complaints people have about this country that is Malaysia, it seems like great idea. The politics suck, the cost of living is skyrocketing, the education system is going to the shits, etc, etc. Why not just get out of here while I still can.
Well, unfortunately to say, I've realized that even though I do have some spark of adventure in me which is the reason why I can jump out of airplanes and go looking for sharks when diving/snorkelling, I still like my comfort zone here in Malaysia. Doing what I've been doing. Yeah, the politics suck, but as long as I can still live my life and the PM isn't trying to blow ME up with dynamite or accuse me of sodomy, I'm ok with the occasionaly drama in the news. Cost of living? Biggest costs are house and car and raising kids. I already have a fully paid, car and I stay with my parents in a cushy condo and not planning to move out unless I get married, and I'm not married which means I have no expensive kids to raise. Otherwise, cost of living is not that bad. Bad education system? Again, no kids, so well, doesn't really affect me.
Yes, I am still thinking that getting out of the country would be worth it. But only if I get married and plan to raise a family, which also means my future imaginery and elusive hubby would have to want to make the move too. As long as I'm single, Malaysia is a pretty cool place to stay in. I have friends and family here, I can watch my nieces grow up, we have great food, shops open way past 5pm, and also it would be a terrible waste to do my diving course this year and then move out of Malaysia (which is next to pretty much all the cool dive spots in the world).
So since I plan to be stuck here for a while, it still means I have no real concrete plan, whether it comes to work, finances, personal life or anything else. How many ways can I possibly have no plan?
Work-wise, I enjoy where I'm at but have been pretty happily plodding along doing my work and hoping for a raise every year. I'm far from the ambitious type where I tell myself I must become manager is x no. of years and at least double my salary or whatever... I just hope for the best and take whatever good I get, whether it be a raise or bonus or whatever. Only recently have I have been feeling stagnant in my area of work (as in I don't think it's getting me anywhere, position-wise) and itching for a change in the main work I do so I get different experience and better future prospects. This is only after almost 3 years in the same job. That change actually could have happened sooner in the almost 3 years since I've been with my current company, but a combination of being already busy with my now stagnating work and my own lack of drive to 'succeed', i.e. work myself up the corporate ladder, lead to the slow progress. But since I've been pretty happy at my job now, I see no reason to leave (part of the reason why I don't want to migrate yet... coz' I need more experience at my work!).
Financially, it's always at the back of my mind that I need to learn how to invest in something reliable. I am currently investing in something through the help of my dad who did all the research on the investment and I'm just along for the ride. But I know I can't rely on him forever and I need to learn how to do my own investments in the future. And since I hate anything to do with finance, except of course, the money itself, learning the tricks of investing in something is scary. Coz' investing is risky and putting my moolah in the wrong place might end up in me losing it. But it's still important, otherwise my moolah will just sit in the bank without growing and that might be difficult when I get to an age when I can't work anymore. Or I actually do start a family and have to raise those money sucking kids. :P My best plan in this area? Marry a guy who is good at financial planning and can help me with investments. Or even better. Marry a damn rich guy who doesn't squander his fortune away. Set for life, baby. >:)
Well, that leads to the next aspect where I have no plan... marriage and family. Kinda hard to plan for that I'm single. Though anything can happen of course, and in five years time I could very well and have met someone and start having little buns baking in the oven. Are there potential guys? Well, yes, there are always potential guys. Whether I will end up with any of them or not is another question. So right now, no plan whatsoever.
And then there's spiritual life. Well, I certainly have no plans to become a pastor, full-time church worker or anything of the sort. Once upon a time I wouldn't mind being married to a pastor if the opportunity came, but now I'm quite sure that will never happen coz' I'm pretty sure I'd make a terrible pastor's wife. On the other hand, I have been having... spiritual issues and was thinking that maybe it's time to go to another church and see what happens. And so was thinking of pulling out of ministries I'm serving in and leaving my current church. But still haven't done it. Mainly coz' I have no plan which church to go to AFTER that. Am kind of occasionally visiting other churchs when I can, to survey the field. It's funny coz' once in the church I went to in Australia, the pastor there, while praying for me, made a prediction that I would become some great woman for God. And everytime I think of that now, I'm just like...hmm... right....
So those are some of the ways where I have no plan in my life. But then I also asked myself... is it really so bad to not have a plan (other than financial planning, which I still consider important no matter what)? I mean, we can plan for stuff but it may not work out the way we want and turn out to be a waste of time (maybe money). Like I usually prefer not to plan for vacations too far ahead of the date, coz' there's another more important event that may come up later at the same time and screw up my plans (happened to me before and I wasted a flight ticket to Thailand!). On the other hand, if I'm content taking each day at a time and hoping for the best, whether it be in my work, personal life or spiritual life, then I may end with things better than I planned or hoped for. And actually I feel like this has what has been happening to me....for example, in my work I have been quite blessed with benefits and favour from my management with I'm not sure I deserve. And in my personal life, I have been blessed with some good friends, and.... I have met a guy whom I really like have great relationship with. But I'm still not sure what will happen between us in the long term, and until I figure it out, he's going to remain a secret. In the meantime, even with having no plan, I still greatly enjoy his company.
Perhaps it sounds bad, but I actually quite enjoy having no plan and enjoying the spontaneity of life. It's been working out for me so far and hopefully it'll continue doing so for a long time. :P
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Listen with expectations
I just spent about 3 and a half hours since 10.15pm chatting with a friend at a cafe. I have questions about my Christian faith which I have to believe he has the answer to. He refuses to tell me because he has no idea how I will react to what he has to say, and he thinks that I will not react well at all, based on his past experiences with other friends. From what I gather, he is 100% sure that God is real. However, he does not believe God is how Christians depict him to be. But he does not what to be the one to break a person's faith. And of course I'm just all the more curious to find out what he knows.
The most I could get out of him however, was a way to get answer to my burning questions.... direct from the source, i.e. the big G Himself.
Listen without expectations.
Now whether I can actually do that is another story. Stopping and listening, I have tried and got nothing. Listening without expectations....that is ... a challenge. I do believe I've talked about how I have this fear about God telling me something I don't wanna hear. And I guess hoping that I won't hear something I don't wanna hear is a form of expectation.
But the burning questions will continue to burn until I get my answers. So I will try.
And we'll see what happens. ;-)
My friend also did say something about how I should stop thinking too much and being afraid of things going wrong. I don't know how the heck he figures this stuff out about me. I thought I did a pretty good job of making people think I'm the carefree, always happy-go-lucky type. Well, that's why I quite enjoy talking to this guy. :)
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