My wits. Harharhar. Just kidding, I’ve already lost them and I’m going flipping mad (but the best people usually are ;)). Anyways, the first thing that popped into my mind was clothes.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made an attempt at spring
cleaning, only to have my room end up more messy than before with
clothes strewn all over the place. Then, in an attempt to be more
“deep,” I wondered if there was any first love I was still holding onto
that I needed to let go of, but alas, I have never yet fallen in love,
so that was not the case.

Standards: I’m torn
between aiming for high standards or aiming for low standards; on one
hand, you should never sell yourself short, and you should always
believe in yourself, but on the other hand, setting impossible standards
can be quite discouraging. I guess what you need, as in the case with
all things in life, is balance. But that’s not what I’m most concerned
with. I’m pretty tough on myself most of the time. Lately I’ve been
giving myself some slack (it is summer after all). However, when there
comes a time I don’t understand something, I can never bring myself to
admit it. Not understanding something has never been a thing I needed to
consider. I was on top of everything. I went above and beyond. In group
projects, I’d finalize everyone’s work and redo parts myself if
necessary. If people had questions, they came to me. It didn’t come so
easy in high school, but I managed pretty well, that is, until the
upperclassman years. I didn’t know how to cope with it, and I felt so
ashamed admitting that I needed help, even if it was just a simple
question that could easily be resolved by my teacher and quickly
explained to me. In this case, the high standards I set for myself
hindered me. My need to assume the image of this brilliant, quick-witted
student, did not allow me to admit that I couldn’t do everything
myself. I’m about to start college,
and I know the academic level will be much more rigorous than what it
was in high school, so there is no doubt that I will face many
challenges, and when I do, I’m going to tell myself that seeking help and asking questions is not a sign of weakness but of intellectual curiosity, which is not even a euphemism—it’s completely true! (with maybe a dash of this and that)
Middle school glory days:
Where did I get the image of this brilliant, quick-witted student I was
supposed to be? From my middle school self of course. The school I
attended in Beijing went from pre-K up until high school. You study with
the same community of people, and over the course of time, you build a
reputation, and believe it or not, my good reputation was what was
holding me back. We are taught to believe that it is okay to make
mistakes, and it is, but that doesn’t mean you go around making mistakes
on purpose if you know the correct way to go about it. Some people make
more mistakes than others, and I didn’t want to be one of those people.
If you don’t make mistakes, how do you grow? Well geez, I’m
only human. I’m going to make mistakes no matter what, and hopefully
I’ll learn from most of them, but I’d still like to minimize the amount
of mistakes I make. What I didn’t realize I was doing was that I was
trying to cover my mistakes. I didn’t want anyone to know that I
was struggling. In the last four years, I’ve caught myself saying
numerous times, “I was so this,” “I was so that,” and what am I now? I’ll tell you what. A complete failure!!!!! You know what’s just as important as learning from your past? Moving forward. That’s what I didn’t do, and that’s what I need to do.
Anger: Don’t let my tiny
appearance fool you. This is the ultimate one for me. I’m that short,
kinda chubby girl that nobody hates (I think. Well, at least one that
nobody hates aggressively), and some people like. I’m agreeable but not
necessarily friendly. That started changing around the upperclassmen
years. I don’t know if it was because of all the stress building up, or
because I was spending too much time around Internet-people, but I just
didn’t like people (irl) anymore. I was sick of what I thought I was
doing all this time in my life, merely tolerating them. I thought, why
should I keep tolerating them? Here they are being unapologetically
annoying, and here I am letting the anger fester up inside me. It’s time
that they know that they’re being annoying and maybe they’ll kindly
shut the firetruck up. I thought that they owed me, which I
realize, now that I’m putting this out in words, is absolutely
ridiculous! Really, the problem was me. Most likely (I say most likely,
because when I get mad my mind gets kinda hazy and I lose the details),
I’m getting worked up about nothing, and there really should be no
reason to get angry. If I get angry, I lose. And what do I get if I win?
Nothing. Probably not even happiness. But at least I’m not angry.
Whenever I feel like I’m really gonna lose it, I’m going to chant under
my breath, karma’s a witch, karma’s a witch, karma’s a witch, and let fate take its course. (I’m trying to keep it PG-13 here). Be the better [wo]man.
Are you holding onto something that you need to let go of?
Labels: monday musings