Writing achievements 2018 – year in review

2018 is coming to an end in an hours’ time as I write this and it’s my hope that this post goes up before the arrival of 2019.

I for one isn’t someone who like to brat to the whole world about what I have achieved and tend to keep a low key. In fact, I’d probably reject any awards that requires me to collect on stage.

But it’s also important to acknowledge how far I have come when it comes to writing.

When I restarted this blog, it was supposed to be just for me to vent my frustrations, let me jot down what happened in my life and help me process all my emotions. After reading lots of articles about self improvement and writing, I came to the conclusion that I’m not going to do that anymore. This blog isn’t going to be about me ranting about life, the misfortunes and whatnots that I have encountered. So I decided to expand my writing into various other things.

With that, I also came to learn that there are only two metrics that matter to a writer. Everything else is just not as important. The first metric is how many articles or essays you have published in a year. Doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad. Hitting that publish button is important as a writer. The second metric is how many followers that you have. The more follower you have, chances are it indicates your writings, especially the underlying message, have somewhat captivated readers and they want more. And it doesn’t matter if they are genuine, fake or bots. It’s important to be very very grateful for those followers and keep publishing new content.

Even so, I feel like celebrating what my blog have achieved in 2018 alone. And I’m going to keep doing what I do, keep working at my writings, interact with the blogger community in whatever capacity I can and grow myself further.

In 2018 alone, I have published 110 posts for a total of 101,270 words compared to 67 posts for a total of 42,420 words in 2017.

Now those are the metrics which are more important than anything else I’ve got to list below because these numbers prove to myself that I can write. A lot. And despite the occasional but overwhelming feeling of failures, I pushed forward. I acknowledge my failures in writing and seek to do them better next time.

And now it’s time for the not so important metrics.

Compare to the year 2017, my blog has gained 1.8x views and 2x the amount of unique visitors. In terms of likes, it’s 3.49x. I couldn’t be more happier. I’m deeply grateful to everyone.

Thank you all so very much. 😀

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

How writing consistently makes you better…

…in your ability in reading, critiquing, and writing.

These days, I have been writing quite a lot. A lot more than I ever did during my early days of blogging. And to me being a consistent writer isn’t so much about publishing something everyday but rather where you put your mind and how you spend your free time.

So that means even if I’m physically there, my mind is actually off looking at things from a writer’s perspective and what lessons can be drawn from there. There will be a lot of idea generation there and then. Sometimes I will daydream and train my ability to live the lives of my characters. And sometimes I will think of plots and sub-plots for my fiction writings during my downtime. Then there are days when I am simply focusing on drafting fiction and didn’t have the capacity to write something for the blog.

And let’s not forget the importance of taking a break and simply just chill or play.

So with all that out of the way, how does writing consistently make me a better reader?

Let me share what I realised today.

My colleagues knows I’m a writer because of the amount of attention I put into it and how much I talk about it. They have also seen some of my writings but I don’t share everything with them.

As a result, one of my colleagues would always get me to read her daughter’s english essays and compositions. But I suspect the other reason was I’m born here in Singapore and have been trained in both English and Mandarin since young. Therefore, I have a better command of English than my colleagues who are all from mainland China.

Today was one of those days. I had to proofread the daughter’s essay and it allow me to realise a bunch of things.

The first thing I realised was how I could intuitively pick up on and point out poor flow of an idea between any two sentences and paragraphs. From there, I was able to suggest possible fixes almost instantly. It was something that I know I couldn’t do very well in the past.

The second thing I didn’t realise I had developed was my ability to somewhat reverse engineer and figure out what was the main objective of a given piece of writing just by reading the content and without being present when the writing task was given. For example, I kind of figured out one of the essays was about having the student practice writing an opinion or commentary piece to the newspaper in the form of a letter without even seeing the homework task. In comparison, my colleague doesn’t even know what her daughter’s homework is about.

And best part about that was how I could suggest a better way of writing to meet the objective.

The third thing was how I could easily determine a piece of writing have lost all its credibility just because it started off wrongly without reading through the rest. And even after reading it through, my initial judgement remain unchanged. From there, I find myself being able to suggest alternative way of writing that presents the writer as more professional and skilled at putting across his or her arguments.

Lastly, I realised how I am able to shrink a wordy paragraph of around five sentences down to maybe one or two sentences that present the same idea. This ability to think and write concisely was something that I struggle tremendously until recently.

Feelers’ struggle with decisions

Some people you meet in life seems to give you the impression that they got everything handled. They are confident and assertive. The way they make decision seems to come very naturally to them.

Then there are those on the other end where every major decision gives the person a panic attack. They stumble, mumble and seem really unsure of themselves when they say their choice out loud. In a group setting, this behaviour can give other people the impression that they are weak or lack of confidence. And it does annoy the hell out of people especially when it’s time sensitive.

But it’s really not anyone’s fault. Everyone’s different and the way their brain process information is different too.

This is why it’s important for one to understand decisions making for some people can be very stressful and slow, especially if the person need to check with themselves on how they feel about different option. And they don’t commit to anything until they are very sure the decision makes them feel good and don’t give them any major regrets.

Maybe you might wonder which part does feelings have to play during decision making. The fact is, feelings are always in play. So are emotions. We are all humans. The question is how much the emotion centre is overwriting the logical centre as well as how good the person is at pulling themselves above those feelings to make a decision.

And sometimes, it’s just that the person feels more deeply, is more sensitive and self-conscious.

Now, as you go about in life, there will be times when you have to make certain life-changing decisions. Then when you do make a certain choice, the end result wasn’t ideal and you feel like crap for weeks or months. And in some case, it may have left you in a bad place. Or it could be that the result wasn’t as serious as it was but because you value other people’s opinion more than trusting your own, you fear losing that respect or friendship.

In the context of the person who feels more deeply, when these above situations happen, they create mental scars. The person won’t want to feel the same way again or go through the same kind of pain again. That’s why he or she will hold off committing until the last minute. But if it is a decision for something that the person has experienced before, then it relatively fast.

I know because I make decisions in this way, always checking with how I will feel at the subconscious level while having this dreadful feeling about having to commit. And I have faced people getting annoyed with me for taking too long. A big part came from me not wanting to disappoint people or get blame for the wrong choice.

However, it doesn’t mean shying away from making decisions. In order to be better at it, one has to keep making decisions. If the choice turn out to be a bad one, learn from the mistake. Seek for forgiven later. But if it’s a life-changing decision, then ask for permission to take a longer time before committing your answer. But it’s important also not to take too long. At the same time, you should reverse engineer what is it you are really afraid of when it comes to decision making and then acknowledge it. When you do that, you give yourself the power to move forward.

Before long, you will be making decisions effortlessly.

Acceptance

It’s already midnight as I write this. And I’m someone who don’t do very well with lack of sleep but I accept the reason why I’m still awake. Not to mention I’m down with another round of flu/allergy. I can’t tell which.

My friend gave me a reason to keep doing what I do. Writing fiction. He commented on Murderous House in private and gave me his thoughts on what I should improve on. So I spent the last two hours trying to write part 2, taking into account his comments.

I accept my desire. The desire to want to spend more effort in my writing and less time on coding. I spend more time thinking about what to write more than what to code.

And that’s how I accept my decision to quit my job, serve my notice and go on a holiday with either my family or friends.

I also accept the trade-off when it comes to having less income as I make the transition to part-time employment. Of course, I will still do what I do for a living because it’s what I know and can do pretty well.

I’m ready to accept and let go whatever judgment I may get from friends as I make this transition.

So have you come to accept whatever choices you have made over the past few weeks or even years?

Growing up feeling inadequate makes you a miserable person

When you don’t have that confidence in what you do, or when you constantly compare yourself with others, you will always feel inadequate. Allow that feeling to go on long enough, you will start to resent your life. This is also how you will develop anxiety disorder and subsequently depression.

I’m speaking from my own personal experience. During my growing up years, adults ranging from my school teachers to my relatives always questioned my abilities to make it in life because of my failures in some things. When I make a mistakes, they would berate me and call me stupid. Or they would find ways and means to twist the situation to make you feel like you are the worse thing in the world.

I still remember the time when I found myself ranked fifth during my fifth year, also my final year, in secondary school amongst 80 students. My aunt was with me to pick up the result sheet and have a talk to my form teacher. On the way home, she commented that, “Looking at your current score of only two As and so many Bs and Cs, you ranking fifth means your cohort of 80 students aren’t the brightest. So your score isn’t that good.”

Being at a rebellious age, I did get quite pissed at her and countered, “At least I got fifth and didn’t fail any subjects.”

All she did was to give me a shrug and a contemptuous yeah.

And in an asian culture—specifically Chinese ones, parents beating their kids for mistakes they made are common. Poor score on your result card, you get spanking. Teachers call up your parents complaining about you making some silly mistake at school, you get spanking. You fail to come home on time or play too much, you get spanking. There could easily be countless reasons why an asian parent will spank his or her kid. I get my fair share.

So when such a thing enter your life from a young age and continue until you reach your teenage years, it’s very easy to internalize it. Before you know it, your self-esteem is gone and you grow up thinking it’s perfectly ok to keep criticizing yourself when you make a mistake. After all, people have been telling you in your face that you are stupid and that’s why you make mistakes. If you are smart, you won’t have this kind of score. If you are smart, you should have been this or that.

So that’s what I did as I got older. I treat myself so harshly that I did contemplate maybe I’m better off dead. So that means I never was once happy during my early teenage years because I constantly fail to meet expectations.

It was only during my three year stint at a polytechnic getting a Diploma in Information Technology that I found something I’m truly good at. I can code better than most people. I could grasp technical concept faster and even found myself teaching my friends. But there were times when I do feel like a failure if I didn’t get the result I wanted. Yet overall, I would say I felt slightly happier.

Then came the mandatory two year conscription service. After that, it was a three year stint at a local university where I studied Computer Science. Because I didn’t keep myself abreast of what’s happening in the technology world nor practice programming, I found myself feeling miserable during those three years. I feel inadequate again. And instead of finding ways to improve my results, I simply let it be and resented myself for not achieving at least a CGPA of at least 4 out of 5. I thought, yeah, I’m stupid and that’s why I only get that kind of grades.

After graduating, I found my first full time job and the same thing happened over and over again. Every mistakes I made I scold myself, blame myself and forget all about self-care or acknowledging that I am only human.

By my third year as a member of the working class, I completely lost my way, feeling anxious, and depressed. A big contributing factor was poor cultural fit at my new company. I didn’t know I was a highly-sensitive person and don’t do well under stress. My self-awareness was suddenly gone. It all became me trying to meet everybody’s expectation and I no longer know what I wanted to do with my life anymore.

It took me a while to realize I am suffering from depression and decided to take control over my life again. I went to see a psychologist, then a psychiatrist for deeper diagnostics, and took a one long month break. I used that time to rediscover myself and figure out what I want to do actually.

Now I’m happier than I ever was but I’m not saying I’m completely above that self-critical nature. I still blame myself rather harshly for poor viewership of my writings but I pick myself up faster and earlier rather than let myself stay on the ground for very long. Because I finally acknowledged that making mistakes, as long as those mistakes don’t kill or hurt anyone seriously enough, is only human. It’s part of the experience. One should learn from it and then do it better next time. I have also learnt to stop comparing to another person because everyone leads a different life, have different personality and want different thing.

I for one wants a unbusy life, surrounded by friends and my family, have meals with them, play video games, watch movies or shows, and publish at least one fiction novel during my life time. Everything else is really just superfluous. Once you establish what you want and proceed to do the things necessary to achieve your goals, you will stop feeling inadequate.

*** This post is also published here on Medium

Photo by Meghan Holmes on Unsplash