Event: The Year of Realisation and Growth

Every year I type out my resolutions before the year ends or when the year just started. This year I started writing this 3 days befre the year ended. I think a lot really happened this year. I can safely say that this is the toughest year I ever had in my entire life. People came and left my life. Things which I never thought will happen to me happened. And on top of all these external factors which I can't control, I realise much of my drama life this year occured because of my own incompetence and weakness. Before a relook on 2011, I will look at my resolutions for 2011 as usual.

My res­o­lu­tion for 2011:

1) Study harder. I need to regain back the dis­ci­pline which I have in JC.

Fail. Mega fail. I didn't even get back 1/4 of my discipline. Someone please spank me.

2) Regain back my lead­er­ship capa­bil­i­ties and style. I haven’t got­ten back fully into momen­tum. After see­ing how the other lead­ers lead their peo­ple with their own char­ac­ter­is­tics, I need to go back into my swing as well. More charisma which I am lack­ing will be a nice touch as well.

I think I got into my own style after a while though there's muh to improve. It's a pity that I got jaded pretty early in the year. Some people did mention about my charisma though. I'll just pretend that they were sincere about it.

3) Less pro­cras­ti­na­tion. There were things which I was sup­posed to do in 2010 which I still have not done. Sorry just won’t cut it and I need to learn to shake off the lazy feeling.

The busy year made this worse. Enough said. I can't even remember what I was supposed to do.

4) Think of what I’d regret. I man­aged to make 2010 a bet­ter one than I’d expected. But there were a few deci­sions which were still not promptly and sen­si­bly made. My term of office will end sooner than I think and I will really have to con­sider care­fully what I have, what I lack, what I want and what I need before decid­ing where to head to next. I also think that I am lack­ing quite a bit of life now. This is a good time to think about what I really want in life. Do I just want a nicer resume? Do I really need to take up all these com­mit­ments? Where will they get me and it is that necessary?

I don't think my brain was working more than half the time this year.

5) Stay fit. After talk­ing to many seniors, they seem to be able to han­dle study­ing and keep­ing fit at the same time. Some­how I just feel exhausted all the time. I guess this has to do with learn­ing to adapt to my new uni­ver­sity life and to stop procrastinating.

I was lied to. There were all unfit. And I fell to the dark side as well. I failed my IPPT but eventually passed it on the third 8th RT session after collapsing 2 times during 2.4km run. It was ultra pathetic. Further, I missed silver by 5 seconds. Darn.

6) Spend less money on use­less things. I think my per­son­al­ity as a spend­thrift has declined a lot, but it’s still not enough. I can do bet­ter and really need to keep track of my spend­ing I suppose.

This spendthrift side of me became better but my income also dropped a lot because of the lack of tuitions I have. In fact I thrived on only 1 tuition for 3/4 of the year before finally having another one. Even then my income was too low. Subsequently my spending habits didn't decrease proportionately.

7) Trea­sure my time with my loved ones. Spend more time with them.

I think I did less of that due to my crazy commitments.

8 ) Learn to be more punc­tual. I think I am gen­er­ally quite punc­tual for meet­ings but this month I was late for almost every sin­gle one of them. Time to man­age my tim­ing properly.

A leopard can't change his spots. But at least the lateness decreased.

9) Rest more. Sleep when I’m sup­posed to sleep.

This didn't happen at all.

 

2011 was the worst year I ever had in my entire life. Many things happened. Many things which I don't want to remember. A few important people entered my life. A few left. The entire year was a flash. It was a blur. Or maybe it's just me trying to forget what happened.

The first half of the year was rather peaceful. My results was not good but nothing much happened. It was blissful but I was greedy. I was dissatisfied. Maybe it would have turned out this way anyhow. A flood of events just kept coming and I couldn't handled them wave after wave. I realised a lot of things. I realised that other people surrounding you can have more impact on you than you think. I realised that ultimately the person who controls your own life is yourself. But most of all I realised that all these are just petty talk. Over the years  I have given much life advice to other people. I was told I sounded experienced and wise. But when you fall yourself, it's different. It's easier said than done. I should have walked away but I didn't. And I knew I should have.

I also learnt that everyone is out there to get me. Or at least that's the mentality I should have. Everyone is trying to screw me over. And there I am, an open book, allowing people to exploit me, allowing myself to commit when I shouldn't, allowing myself to be blinded. So there I have learnt. Nobody is nice. Everyone is selfish. So I should learn to close myself up. I thought I was good at that but apparently I wasn't. Nobody was going to teach me all these. But now life has, and now I know.

I think I understood myself better. Despite me knowing that I have been screwed over, deep inside I still categorise those screw-ers as people who are important to me. So I have to cut it off right from the beginning the next time. Scared and scarred, that's about enough deterrence I hope, that I will be more vigilant.

"Chances" are another type of player. When I was too afraid to lose my chance, I overdid things. When I wanted to take it slow, the chances evade me. Then I keep thinking of how I regret losing something or something because of "wrong timings". I never believed in "if it is meant to be, it will be". I believe in "if it is meant to be, you still need to work for it." So now I don't know what to believe in.

I also made a few pretty impactful decisions and opened up to my close friends. I'm not sure if it was a wise decision yet but I suppose at least it has not backfired so far.

I don't think I have many resolutions for 2012 which are different.

1) Keep fit and pass my IPPT within the first holidays.

2) Study way harder.

3) Hone my focus. This includes not setting expectations on things which I shouldn't and setting expectations on things I should. Walking away when I'm supposed to, sleeping when I should be.

4) Manage my money better.

5) Learn some new skills, java would be good.

I'm exhausted. I used to be confident. I thought I lost it. But I think it's still there, and because of this blinded confidence, I thrust myself into something which I think I knew better when I don't. I'll walk slower this year. But I'll be steady. I find myself back. I won't let my friends miss the old me too much.

2012 will be a better year, because nothing can be worse than 2011. I'll survive, you watch.