Hello 2018

Picture by Brunna Mancuso (@brunnamancuso on Instagram)

Hello people!

It's a brand new year! How is it 2018 already? I swear Christmas just flew by way too soon; I felt like I have not gotten enough Christmas music this past break — and whoosh, it just passed!

How did you spend your New Year's Eve? I saw quite a lot of my friends went to major countdown events/clubbing the night away/gathering with either friends or family... or both through their Instagram stories and Snapchats, because hey, what's living without posting exciting stuffs onto social media as proofs eh?

As for me, I spent the night with my mom in the kitchen, preparing dumpling fillings and wrapping dumplings to freeze for Chinese New Year (and also for me to sneak on whenever I feel hungry, I mean frozen dumplings are great in any type of soup). Also, halfway wrapping the dumplings, only I realized I forgot to make a pun with my dog, Eve (New Year's Eve), like I forgot to do on Christmas Eve. She must be very fed up of me and my stupid pun (sorry Eve, I still love you).

Anyway, as I grow older, I do get less excited over new years, and I'm definitely over the "new year, new me" thing, because honestly speaking, does it really work out? Not for me, sadly. I tend to stick to resolutions/goals set out on a random date, than on a fresh start. Maybe it's because I won't feel the all-or-nothing mindset as much compare to the start of a new month or year.

And that's the story of how I basically gave up on new year resolutions for years.

However, this year, instead of a rigid new year resolution, I thought about having some general directions to go for in 2018. I thought it'd be useful for me to set out general directions and only set smaller, more specific goals that will lead up to the big picture throughout the year, as I cannot cope with a huge switch of habits like the "new year, new me" concept. Not only it doesn't work for me at all, it also scares the shit out of me.

Those general directions I thought of are mostly all about my physical and mental well-being, because again, as I grow older (I hate this phrase, I'm still young but I sound like I'm trying to educate people by saying as I grow older... trust me, I'm not. I'm just sharing my insights to what I discover more and more about myself.), I do start to understand the importance of self-care and self-love, both physically and mentally. I think I just kinda get the point of how people describe our bodies as the temples that we're living in, and it's really important take care of our bodies because this will be the only place we're going to live in for the rest of our lives... unless technology really advance in the near future where they can transfer your consciousness into a robotic body when your real body fails you or something.

Therefore, I'm going to share a few directions that I'll be working towards in 2018!

1. Read more!
good for mind, good for soul

I definitely read quite a lot in 2017, 228 books, to be exact. I know, that's a lot of books to read, considering I only had 3 months worth of holidays throughout the entire year.

However, I'm not too satisfied with what I read last year. Most of the books I read were Chinese chick-lit, and don't get me wrong, not that there's anything wrong with reading chick-lit — I do love them! It's just that I was actually reading chick-lit as a way to procrastinate from all the actual readings I had to do for finals or assignments, as those books didn't require any brain-power. I could actually finish two books per day even with classes and assignments, because those books were like fast-food to my brain. Easy to get down, but to be honest, apart from a couple few that actually were kinda educating, the rest were like fast-food, not necessarily "nutritious" to my brain. Sure, those books allowed my brain to unwind and relax from all the stress I was having, but I didn't really benefit anything from them.

So, in 2018, I'm hoping that I'll explore more in terms of genres, or at least read more crime fictions. I literally had a rack full of crime novels, because I love them so much. However, they do require a lot of brain cells to process them, which I have none during busy weeks drowning in assignments. I'm not straying entirely away from chick-lit, but I'm really excited to fit in more "serious" or "deeper" readings into my schedule, or mostly during holidays so I won't be sidetracked by assignments.

After all, it's quality over quantity.

2. Write, write, write!
let them feelings out, let them hands break

I've been in a writer's block since... forever. Back in high school, writing was like breathing to me. Not only it was instinctual, it was very much needed to keep me alive from all the insanity around me.You can't see me without papers or journal, scribbling fiercely into them like my life was dependent on it. However, as years passed by, I just slowed down... eventually into a pause.

I think there're quite a lot of factors as to why I'm noticeably writing lesser and lesser (excluding assignments, report papers etc.), and most of them probably are just lousy reasons that I need to get over with.

I was lazy, and reading was definitely easier than writing. Also, self-doubting every single word I poured out of me was excruciating, so instead of facing the pain brought by it, I just dismissed writing my own stories as a whole. I often times jotted down really good ideas, but sadly, I let them remained as ideas instead of really writing them out, because of the silly fear of not being good enough.

I really have that all-or-nothing mindset, and I swear someday it's going to kill me.

So, instead of the "out of sight, out of mind" cowardice approach, I decided that in 2018, I shall start to write more, regardless of whether it's a story or just plain old rambling in my journal/blog... I just have to start somewhere, and not let the fear of "not being good enough" get the very best of me. If I don't try to work around or get rid entirely of that mindset, I'll never accomplish anything.

It's always better to have a oops than a what if.

And also, it seemed like the only person judging myself is me. Ironically enough, it's always me that judged all my works and compared them to other people's works, and generally decided that all of my stuffs sucked.

Cowardice Maggie, please remain in 2017 and don't follow me into 2018, thank you very much.

3. Body Image.
love over hate, anytime & every time

I'm going to save you from all the miseries right here, and you're going to thank me for this. Because if you really let me go on about this topic, god, I can go on for more than ten thousand words.

Long story short: I have shit body image, due to years of being laughed at by other people (relatives, friends, classmates etc.) because I am too chubby for societal's beauty preferences. And it's not fair to blame all of them, too, since I know some people don't really grasp the concept of "words can actually be hurtful" (even though I know there're certainly people that are aware of this concept but still decided to give me shit about it, because they're horrible human beings. I mean it.)

Instead of following the common advice of other people gave me when I told them I felt hurt "just don't listen to other people", I couldn't seem to just stop listening to those harsh comments. It's basically like asking a person to ignore a broken limb that he/she didn't break it him/herself.

Oops, sorry, I guess I'm getting a bit carried away.

Okay, back to the point: instead of shrugging it off, like those words were nothing, I used their words as weapons against myself. Worse, I used harsher words to abuse myself mentally, and decided I just wasn't worth it because I'm not pretty or slim enough.

I let my worth based on their words, and also my own dark, twisted words.

But thankfully, at the end of 2017, I started to come to my senses, and realized how horrible I was to myself. I mean, I can't control how other people wanted to laugh about me, but I can control how I feel about myself. I shouldn't validate myself just based on my looks, and be so insecure about it because of what other people think of me.

I kinda just limit the usage of abusive words to myself, and started to use more encouraging words whenever I felt down looking into the mirror (which was like 9/10 of the times).

I still have a long way to go in this self-love/building back my body image and confidence thingy, but at least I started somewhere, and I'm so proud of myself.

Of course it's not like I'm going to just let myself loose and just eat whatever shit I can find and don't care about how my body will look and get obese or whatever. It's more of like, I'll try to eat healthier and fuel myself with nutrients, make peace with food and also my body. I won't force myself into clothes that won't fit me, but rather buy clothes that suit me. And exercising will just be a gateway to a healthier life, instead of extreme dieting so I can get other people's validations.

I mean after all, if I'm healthy and this is my set point weight/size, why on earth I want to hate myself because of that?

I still have a lot of down days, as I'm at the very early stage of self-accepting. Often times, I felt so angry to see the cellulite on my upper thighs, so despair to feel my thighs touch, so worthless to see a belly hanging out. In my moments of weakness, I cried silently in the bathroom, remembering how others called me fat and ugly, and hearing the echo of their mean laughter. Those were the moments I wished so badly that I don't look like well, me...

It's a really tough journey, but I really, really think that it's a journey that's going to worth it.

I don't expect myself to be 100% confident about my body image by the end of 2018. I know I can't undo years of damage in a short period. Besides, I do believe this will be a lifetime of work, but I just hope I'll get better and better over time, and don't let others' comments (apart from constructive criticisms, of course) to get the very best of me.

So yeah.

Those are the three main directions I will be working on in 2018. I have set mini goals that will help achieving them, and also mentally prepared myself for slip-ups or failures, so I won't just give up entirely when those happen, but identify the factors to my slip-ups and strive even harder to get to the bigger picture.

I'm really hopeful, and I believe even if I don't progress a lot in 2018, at least I started somewhere, and starting something that's terrifying to me (re: 2&3) is a good way to push myself to grow further as a person.

Thank you for reading this huge rant, and I hope you have a wonderful 2018!

Strive for progress, not perfection, people!

xx