For the first time in 24 years did I spend the New Year countdown without my family beside me.
The previous New Year countdowns were normally spent lazing around with my parents, and bitching about with my siblings. My mum will then, as always, turn to us with the biggest query she has in stall for us each year - what is my New Year resolution?
It is a very good tradition to keep up with, and I really thank you my mum for the effort in making us keep track with our lives using this little self-reflection.
Now, in the coming of 2008, even without my mum standing beside me, I actually hear her inside my mind. And she is asking me the question again.
What is your New Year resolution, girl?
Well, to start off, my first resolution is to keep my blog updated - as frequently as possible. I do have a blog, but never really gotten to keeping it updated with my own life.
2007 marked a very strange, yet one of the exciting years in my life - I visited Taipei; which was my very first vacation abroad, and my 'first' being the first time I went away with my friends and not my family. I love to travel with my family; not so much with friends. So this vacation leaves a very significant mark in my life.
I also went on my first business trip. It's not as formal as I've witnessed in TV shows, because I do not meet clients in suit and tie, the venue was not a meeting room, and we weren't discussing about huge proposals, nor shook hands in agreement. Nothing of the sort, at all. I just went on a trip back to my hometown because my company was holding an event in KL, and I was chosen to be part of the team to facilitate the success of the project. Nonetheless, the fact that I was on a business trip kinda made me feel as if I've really grown up. And it made the first mark in my working life.
Another significant mark I made in my working life was my resignation from the company. The decision was pondered over for sometime - about 6 months - and when I finally got around to doing it, I understood the meaning of the phrase "taken the whole load off your shoulders". I literally felt it. I am very surprised at the large amount of stress that has been comsuming me since the beginning of 2007.
Lastly, in the midst of 2007, I made an amazing discovery about myself, and thus decided upon the turn to make into the path leading my future. I've decided to go into the education industry and become a teacher.
It was quite a tough decision to make because the first time I come across the idea, I was about to graduate from university, and teaching seems more like a second option. I was eager to start my working life and enjoy its benefits. My ideas of that wonderfully perfect world came to a full stop when I first tasted the harsh realities of the world outside school compound.
Soon, I start to question my own abilities and the purpose of my life. When I meet my friends who have already started walking down the path towards the future they've chose, I began to wonder if I am going to be where I am now for the rest of my life. Suddenly, I felt lost. I felt that my life is losing its grasp on meaning. I am completely clueless about my future, and am depressed about losing it to the monotonous routine I am drowned in.
Things began to take its shape again when I sort answers for new questions; realistic and purposely questions.
What am I here for? I always believe that everyone of us is here for a reason. We are all here for a purpose.
What can I do to make my life more meaningful?
How can I make my life more interesting? Most importantly, what can I do to keep it interesting in the years to come?
The answered dawned upon me one morning as I was travelling to work in the MRT. I like to be a guidance to others. I realised that people respond to my guidance well, because I can communicate effectively with them.
I am a very sensitive person, and I tend to get emotional very easily. I weep at the slightest care and concern shown to me. I am able to fill myself into others' shoes, and think and feel as they do, thus I can communicate effectively with them. I used to see these as my weakness. But towards the dawn of 2008, I convinced myself to face them as my strengths.
What can I do to give a purpose in my life by making use of my strengths?
I arrived at the answer that has been in my sub-conscious mind all along - teaching.
My loved ones were appalled at my decision and persuaded me to reconsider the options. I am glad to have perservere with it.
It is something that I have confidence in delivering, and will have interest in doing so for a very long time too.
So much of what has happened in 2007 was not recorded in my blog, thus I do feel a bit of remorseful about it, and I envy those who did.
My second resolution is to keep my room as clean and tidy as possible for the whole of 2008 and beyond. I shall get rid of the lazy bone in my spine, and start keeping all my stuff clean, fresh and dust-free. My sister will be truly glad about this because she had once threatened to accomplish the task for me, the one thing I really would want to do for myself.
Lastly, I shall continue to raise my EQ. Especially when I'm travelling in a public transportation. Although there a few people who has never failed to introduce me to the various ways of displaying rudeness and impoliteness, I decided to learn to keep my distance from them, and maintained my temper at the lowest point.
3 resolutions for the new year - and in the coming days, I hope to make them a habit till the next year.
