I look in the mirror and all I is see a fat ugly bloke, who’ll prolly not succeed in life. This person in there can never keep up with his interests. He took up Japanese for a while, but somehow didn’t continue after the basics. He attended yoga lessons, only to stop after the beginner classes.
When he was younger, he bugged his mummy to send him for abacus lessons. His mummy told him,
“Aiya, no point lar. You’ll stop going for it after a while.”
That short attention-span of his, evident since young.
I always wonder how one can build perseverance and determination. Can procrastination and laziness in a person’s nature be eradicated? Are they actually a nature, or simply a flaw? Do zodiac signs or horoscopes really define one’s traits? Or is it the upbringing that carve a person?
There are times where I just wish I could die and start afresh in my next life. But the thing is, I don’t know if there is a next life. My faith is not placed with any religion, so I can’t be sure of heaven, hell, afterlife, reincarnations and all that jazz. What if I die and I become a cow in my next life? Then I’d be born to slog, which could actually be much better in character than right now. But that life is kinda short. I could become Kobe beef in a couple of years. (What?! Can’t I strive to be the BEST cow in my next life?)
I’ve been facing low self-esteem and confidence since my one-year stint in junior college. I used to be the cream of the crop in secondary school that I kinda became rather big-headed. But JC life showed me there are always better people out there. My life sank to an all-time low when I became an outcast from the JC system. Or perhaps I perceive myself to be, but I felt depressed, not doing as well as I did before, while not putting in any extra effort.
It was quite a turning point. I’m never sure of myself anymore. I do not trust any of my thoughts, even after tonnes of reassurances. I was despondent and started not caring about anything anymore. Doomed to fail in life, anyway. Which is bad because I came to realise, in recent years, that I can achieve something if I choose to put mind, heart and soul into it.
Like when I was in polytechnic, I skipped lectures like nobody’s business, I didn’t prepare for tutorials. I hated project work. I prolly only knew little bits and pieces of what was going on throughout the semester. But I didn’t allowed myself to fail my exams. No way was I taking the supp papers.
Nearing the exams, I saw myself going thru the basic notes and references, making sense of what’s going on, occassionally consulting (or bugging) the ppl who paid extra attention in class for more complex concepts (though once or twice their explanations were rather raw, it gave me a headstart to figure them out myself). It helped that most of my pprs were open-book exams. I was quite good at sourcing for the solution, paraphrasing and crapping out into the answer booklet. But I didn’t fare too badly for the closed-book ones. The impt thing is, I didn’t fail ANY exams! I may not have aced them, but not failing is quite a feat for all the no-effort thruout the semester.
Which brings me to a point of realisation that if I had worked harder, my name could have appeared on the Director’s List. But alas, I’m the lazy and procrastinating pig. All the “if’s” are just bull. But at least I know I’m able to do something right. I know things can be better. I’m just not acting on it.
Don’t ask me why. I don’t know. Maybe I have a short attention-span. Maybe I get distracted easily. Like how I wanted to write about something else in this entry and it turned out (and edited) to become a self-demeaning story. It’s bad to be starting work on Monday and demoralising myself about never going to succeed in life the weekend before.
I just want to look in the mirror and see hope. Just a glimmer of it to show that I will do just fine.
Just fine, will do.
