Showing posts with label problem-solving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label problem-solving. Show all posts

Thursday, March 18, 2010

136 - The beginning of the end

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Before an individual presents bad news to others, sometimes they will feel the need to mention that it breaks their heart to even say this, that even the very act of presenting upsetting information evokes in them a sense of helpless shame and sadness before they've even brought others into that same dark place. They may also phrase it in a slightly different way, the clichéd old line of there's-no-easy-way-to-say-this-so-I'm-just-gonna-say-it. Most of the time when people utter these words, they aren't really thinking hard about what their words imply. These two approaches to sharing thorny matters are effectively meaningless and false, because they miraculously provide the user with the exact 'easy way to say it' that he/she so desperately needs, but perhaps sacrificing the level of concern that should be raised - as if those disclaimers make it easier to bear. Saying it is easy any way you do it. It's deciding what you're going to do next that's the hard part.

This is going to sound very egotistical, but I feel that my whole life is a hard one, with many hard parts. I have come to realize that I have an aversion to doing things the easy way. I find myself thirsting for challenge all the time. On multiple levels of consciousness, I create the Hell I so mention in this blog's title, and proclaim it to be some sort of epic battle against the odds. But I don't believe in chances. My faith lies in the individual paving his own path to walk on, and any challenges that arrive in the near future are those reared from his very own actions in the recent past. Not long ago, a friend of mine told me that she notices from this blog that I always try to give everything in my life a logical cause - a reason for their happening or existence. She hit the nail right on the head with that comment. I need to rationalize. And the idea of fate or destiny just never seems very rational to me. I want to attribute everything that happens to me... to me.

And so whenever I'm faced with a problem nowadays, I like to think about what I can do about it. I draw from experiences in the past, I analyze their relevance to the present dilemma, and I make plans for the imminent future. I don't believe that the hands of fate exist and can help me. I have to take matters into my own hands. I know my livelihood isn't that hard, as long as I try not to think too much. While I tend to inflate the severity of my stress, I also tend to exaggerate my own ability to deal with such stress. I often forget who I really am and what I'm capable of. And I forget what matters to me because I'm thinking too hard and there's just too much going through my mind.

Who I am is very simple. As it has always said on every online profile I have, I am an 18-year-old, Filipino-Chinese student living in the UK, and originally from Hong Kong. I'm also a TV fanatic, an avid reader, a food zealot, an aspiring forensic anthropologist, an inborn outdoorsman, a learned bartender, an ambitious globetrekker, an internet addict, and a passionate Pokémon master. There's one thing not on the list, but I'll get to that soon. Despite all of that, though... I'm afraid there's one of those terms that just bears greater weight on who I really am and should be than all the rest.



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And so here I must finally tell you what this 'bad news' is, how this is 'the beginning of the end', and how everything I've talked about so far comes together. Now, it really does bum me out to now tell you that for maybe as long as a year now, I disliked blogging a lot. I didn't want to. And the logical reason as to why I continued to blog in spite of that was to feel like I was trying to conquer some challenge, like I talked about earlier, and avoid the easy way out, which was to simply stop blogging. I mentally overstated my own capabilities and I ended up posting over a hundred posts, on four/five different blogs, that I was not proud of or happy with. It was a big mistake, my own mistake, reared by my actions in the recent past. While I went through this Hell I put myself in, I got lost, and I forgot who I really am.

But who I am is and has always been very simple. I'm just a university student - that is what I have been taught, been molded, and been working to be for my entire life. Along the way, I found 'additions' to my life, but the basic foundation is my student status. I don't consider myself a writer. I may write well, but that doesn't mean I feel... like being a writer. I have always known in my heart that truth, and nothing anybody says to me can change my mind about that. I'm just a guy who wants to talk about my life and meet some interesting people in the blogosphere along the way. I don't want publicity, I don't want money, I don't actually think of this as practicing writing, and I absolutely hate how crowded these sidebars have become.

I just want to be me. Being anything else... is the hard way, the hard part...

So, while I was sitting here considering what I should do before I started writing this post, I looked back at my experiences in the past, and observed that I tend to enjoy my life most when I'm given a fresh start. Having a clean slate invigorates me, gives me motivation that will sharply contrast the indifference I've had for so many months. I'm going to announce the end of this blog and Do you hate it too? sometime in mid-April. Then, sometime between April and July, I will start a brand new blog, with a brand new look, and a brand new focus on just me. No gimmicks, no funny business, just my honest thought and emotion painted on a clean canvas. I'll probably post once or twice before I announce that end in mid-April just to tease about the new blog and inform you of how you can be notified about it ASAP when I launch it.

But for now, I think we'll just leave the news-sharing at that. I'm sorry it took me a while to say something. And I'm sorry that this one and Do you hate it too? have to come to an end. I never envisioned it, but hey, maybe that little thing called 'fate' that I don't believe in will bring me to blog on them again. After reading this, I hope that you realize that for me, there really was no easy way to say this, and that I'm not just saying that without thinking about what those words mean. It truly, genuinely, seriously breaks my heart.  It's sad to have to think about saying goodbye to something that was a part of you for a long time.  But I guess it's just another white hair on the top of my head. Or another immobile, dormant white dwarf in the universe. Or maybe it's the first signs of white light at the end of a tunnel.

Friday, January 22, 2010

120 - Why I solve my own problems

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Throughout the course of my life, I have gradually gravitated towards an independent, individualistic way of life. I stand on my own two feet and face the world alone, most of the time, on my own accord. I don't ask for help, I refuse to admit I need help, even in the most drastic of conditions. If a problem is presented in front of me, you can be sure that I will try any and every possible way in my physical and mental capacity to solve that dilemma. If the issue persists, but I have the time to, I will venture to learn the skills, whether they be technical or cognitive, to do so on my own.

I hate to admit defeat. I am a competitive person. I want to reach the top.

And I don't ever want to ask for people to support me on my way. It would take away from my personal glory, my own accomplishments in life.

However, people like my mother and a few good buddies of mine have helped me throughout my entire life. They've stuck by me through thick and thin, in both times when I was very sure of who I was, and times when I was lost and confused. At this stage in my life, they only know all too well to simply wait for me to ask them for help if I need it. I manage to find trust in them somewhere inside me because they've proven for years that they can help me. I ask them because I'm not afraid of being disappointed by them. They live up to their roles as my closest family and friends.

At university, let's just say that there are a group of people that I have been trying to work with for the past four months to bring together something really fun, really educational, and really good. I put my heart and soul into this little project, and on my return to university from my winter holidays, I was extremely, extremely disappointed to find out that the other people in this group just didn't want to do it anymore. They gave up. And they don't give a rat's ass about what I feel.

And that is exactly why it is so hard for me to trust and depend on people I've just met. I cannot tell you how many times I've been disappointed by the people around me. Too often in my life, different people have done things to demonstrate how they are just so flawed and unworthy of my trust. I wish people kept the same personalities throughout your entire time of knowing them. But the real world makes it work differently. Friends become enemies, and enemies become friends. A social life filled with good friendships is a slippery slope on the summit of a mountain, and although reaching the highest point on that mountaintop gives you a great sense of pride, the natural inclination is to go downwards, because hiking up to the peak requires too much hard work.

One of these days, I'm going to stop giving new people I meet a chance. One of these days, I won't trust anyone new ever to help me with certain matters,  because I feel like nobody can get things done right besides me. I'll ponder this a bit more - and I'm sure I'll come to some conclusion as to why I should give people chances.

But for now, for just these next few minutes, I want to be mad - mad at the people who let me down, mad at the inconsiderate, self-indulgent, power-hungry people that don't even care. It's not fair. It's not right.