There are a few things I would like to share, based on what I went through and the people I know went through and have shared with me. These are not gold life lessons and you may have heard it time and time again. I just believe it is magnified even more for me on my own personal life:-
1. Take the leap
Leap and make changes in your life. Be it career wise or in other areas. You may regret some of the outcome but the experience itself will nudge you to think. It will propel you to greater heights if you allow it to do so. Trust me, this is hard. Making the change or changes was not easy. Adapting to it is hardly easy. Somehow, you just have to make do with the situation whether you like it or not. The funny bit about us humans is that we crave change yet we lean towards comfortability in our daily lives. We are so used to routine that a slight change can get us feeling anxious. I am guilty of that. I wanted change. I changed/made decisions/did a few things different. What happened? I did not like it. Some of it, I liked and loved it. But mostly I still went what if I did not decide that. What if I just stayed on with the situation accepting the comfort zone. Well, face it Dee. You made the decisions, face it and enjoy the ride. No time for pity party and regrets. It would be just a waste of time. Take the lessons that you learn in the leap/leaps that you have made
2. Make time
Make time for yourself and your loved ones. It is good to celebrate achievements and festive season surrounded by people who would root for you no matter what. Go for a 15 minute walk at your local neighbourhood park or run 1 mile a day (or every weekend). That is making time for yourself. To honour the body that God have given you and to allow your body to be reminded that it is capable. I have been taking yoga classes for the last couple of years and I still could not do any inversion poses. That frustrates me but yoga is not about reaching a certain pose and doing it well. What yoga has taught me is that how interesting and flexible my body is if I train it to be. Mostly I learned to appreciate my yoga time as my time to rest and relax my mind. You won’t believe how emotional savasana can be for me that at times I do have tears in my eyes.
Go marketing with your mum/dad/parent on weekends or just enjoy brisk walks together or breakfast. I love my Sundays because it means church then breakfast then just marketing with my mum. I treasure it even more after Dad passed on and the recent mild heart attack my Mum had last two months. Lazy to go out? Make a pot of tea/mug of coffee each and talk to your loved ones. Stash the gadgets aside to get a proper quality time with them. Make time for your close friends over drinks/dinners. I don’t know about you but I myself am blessed with a wonderful circle of friends from different areas of my life. We try our best to meet up and it feels good to know that such friendship has lasted over the years.
3. Create
Remember that pottery class for beginners and you think you have no creativity? Well, who cares. Just go for the class. At least you will figure out if you enjoy your time with clay. Such changes, my friends, even minor ones like trying a new hobby can be terrifying but it will expand your mind and life experiences. The worse thing that could happen is that you will meet new people. You will realize that creativity is in all of us, it is just if you want to magnify or harness it in you. You don’t need to be Picasso but hey, get that coloring book and just colour.
If paint/art is not your thing, try cooking or baking. That is also creating and what’s great about such activity is you can always share the outcome (cakes/cookies).
4. Read
I am not talking about Facebook updates or social media. I am talking papers that you can flip. An actual book. There’s a lot of cheap books out there on sale, especially second hand ones. If you can’t think of a good reason to buy a book, go to your local library. Challenge yourself to read something you are not used to. It is easy to read what you like but hard to decipher books that does not appeal to you. I am guilty of not reading much for the past years and I felt that has made me a little bit boring. I am slowly getting back into the swing of things. Slowly but surely. I try my best not to read newspapers as it contains too much bad news and if I do, usually I do so at the end of the day.
5. Journal
This is great therapy if you allow it to. You don’t need to write every single bit that happened to you that day. Just one word or perhaps a few sentences. I know this activity helped me to focus in the morning and align me back to what I needed to do. When I read back what I wrote a few days back or weeks back I realized it was not so bad after all. Plus, in this digital age I want to make sure I remember how to write so this helps. You would be surprised how comforting it is to write out your thoughts. How beautiful it is to read it again in the next few weeks or years and remembering the situation be it good or bad.
Well, my friends. These were my top 5 that has influenced my 2016 very much so. I know it is nothing new to most people but to me, I just wanted to share how it was for me. After all, sharing is caring right? I pray and hope 2017 will bring all of you greater adventures that you will be proud of living. As my Uncle Peter said the other day, if you have done such a great time living your life, dying will not be hard.
