Showing all posts tagged mental health

In Life on the Equator, Overcasted Mind, Pandemic Pondering

Is gratitude a prison?

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Is gratitude a prison?

There was this conversation between Randall, the adopted son of the Pearson family, and Kevin, his non-biological brother in This Is Us S05E13 that had been stuck with me for a while. It’s when Randall admitted that the fact that he was adopted by a family he loves so much makes him feel that he is bound to show nothing but gratitude at all times, while that feeling, truthfully, feels like an emotional prison because oftentimes he still couldn’t help but thinking about all the what-if’s had he been living with his biological parents instead his whole life. And Kevin said he sounds “wildly ungrateful.”

And I’ve been thinking about that ever since. The feeling of having to constantly show gratitude because people might perceive you to live a somewhat ideal life, when the truth is, sometimes you just want to lash out because things haven’t felt okay in a prolonged time, and let the world watch you go nuts in 4K if they please.

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In Blood-bounded, Impulsive Writing, Life on the Equator, Pandemic Pondering

Would It Have Been

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Would It Have Been

Does it really take the whole world to crumble for two creatures to coincidentally find a home in each other’s presence, two siblings to make long-overdue amends, and a mediocre character to take their first step towards digging what should never have never been buried for nearly two decades?

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In Life on the Equator, Overcasted Mind

On Impostor Syndrome and My First Work Anniversary (Part I)

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On Impostor Syndrome and My First Work Anniversary (Part I)

It barely feels like a year has passed since I signed with my current employer to officially land my first full-time gig.

With all that had happened in the past year, today I’d like to try to reflect a little bit on this very short amount of time that I have invested in building my career as a geologist. A position that truthfully, I never really knew would fit in or not, that I was never too confident about. Not because I thought I sucked at it, but because I personally never thought that I was exceptionally good at it.

I didn’t graduate cum laude in my undergraduate, unlike many of my classmates. The ability to find an interesting research question in this field does not come quite naturally for me. Any geology-related achievement that I ever made was more of a result of being scared of failure and becoming a disappointment, instead of a purely natural drive out of passion and curiosity. I’m lucky that I seem to still do pretty well in the past eight years which was mostly thanks to my innate perfectionism and commitment, I guess, but truthfully, I just never expected to really succeed in this field.

Maybe at least until a year ago.

(This title will be split into two-piece articles since apparently I had refrained so much from writing about my career, hence I’ve got so many thoughts to be poured now. This first part will mostly talk about my process of finding my entrance into my first full-time job. Buckle up if you decide to follow along, because this post isn’t particularly a short one.)

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In Thoughtful Enlightenment

Drawing a line between ‘life accomplishments’ and ‘things we write on our rรฉsumรฉs’

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Drawing a line between ‘life accomplishments’ and ‘things we write on our rรฉsumรฉs’

With the progressing development that advances the way society thinks about and perceives one’s success, it really is impossible to not include “having a secure job, promising career, and a happy, wealthy family” into our own definition of success. Particularly for those who, throughout their lives, have been lucky enough to be exposed in privileged environments that praise high levels of education and surrounded by well-educated people who seem to be really driven in making the world a better place.

Which is a great thing, I believe. It provides all the motivation to really build the world into a better space for all living creatures to live in. Either by competing with one another to achieve more goals, or by gathering with similar-minded people to brainstorm together to reach such purposes. Nothing seems to be wrong up to here.

But then, it can get dangerous as well. Particularly in the era where mental health-triggered problems have been regularly appearing on the headlines, and where we could easily keep track of other people’s “achievements” that they openly share across social media. The danger is not about how we can handle the potential jealousy and envy that might arise, but rather, how we can handle looking at ourselves after those images that those other people create have been influencing our perspectives.

The danger is the change in how we value ourselves, and how we can perceive our “actual” accomplishments as to not be confused with “curated” accomplishments that we might display on our resumes. The danger is when we tend to begin to think that our lives are only worth remembering when we have done and got enough to showcase on our LinkedIn page, for instance.

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In Days in Edmonton, Thoughtful Enlightenment

“Befriend” them, even if you’re scared to.

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“Befriend” them, even if you’re scared to.

Awhile back, I came across a blog post that was becoming somewhat viral at that moment, particularly among the Indonesian students overseas. It was written by an Indonesian student residing in a European country, who was describing how she always finds that the majority of Indonesians in that country seem to have always been only socializing with their own communities of Indonesians and rarely seem to be engaged with either the locals or the more internationally diverse communities. P.s.: she belonged to the opposite group.

For her, maybe her comfort zone is indeed in the circle of the locals. For others, maybe their comfort zone is people who share the same background, thus easier to pass along the jokes with or relate in any way. While it’s probably cool that someone enjoys being in the company of a diverse group of people just because not many people might even like that idea, it also makes the most sense for someone to be the happiest when surrounded by a rather homogenous society which shares the most similarities with them. Especially when it comes to the cultural or religious background that further defines our core values and general perspectives about life, which really accounts for who do you pick as your comfort friends eventually. Who would enjoy feeling constantly challenged just because they’re surrounded by those who do not see the world the way they do? It is absolutely just easier to live with those whom with we could be at peace together, is it not?

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In Days in Edmonton, Playlist

If my current life were a TV series, these would be the theme songs:

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If my current life were a TV series, these would be the theme songs:

Sometimes when I was casually strolling on the rustic sidewalk on one of those days back in the Fall, particularly early in the day when the daybreak just rose, or later when the yellow shades of afternoon just turned gold and the evening breeze began to nudge my cheeks, I imagined if I had actually been living in a TV series. (And all this messed up reality is actually just a fake show, ha! Well, I wish.) There would be a camera shooting from one side of my moving feet, then another one from the tip of my right eye which was staring straight onto the avenue, and another one just across my lips that were mumbling some lyrics that I remembered from these songs.

The story begins when a girl feels like she’s misplaced in this small town, and she struggles to find a circle where she really fits in, without feeling like she has to try all the time.

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