Mars under attack, Venus on the rack. 

Two months and a half since the asteroids have fallen on Mars, causing the Martians’ minds to be foggy and haywire. As if a plug loses its fuse, their memory box has lost its hinge. They went back to Mars, forgetting all that had happened on Earth while a wave of dusty air surrounded the planet, keeping the Venusians’ eyes red. Their sights are blurry and it’s almost impossible to recognize the flags. Red or green, the only colour that filled the orbs is blue. Days changed and it’s still blue. Some chose to go home back where they belonged, yet some chose to stay amidst the confusion and uncertainty. Not knowing whether it was right or wrong, they pushed themselves into a deep well hoping for everything to be well again.

Days passed and the Martians still kept themselves in the cave. They didn’t seem to step out any sooner. The earth has never been so silent before and the flowers were no longer blooming. Reaching the end pit of the well, the Venusians finally stretched out their hands and pulled themselves out of it. The silence is frustrating and driving them crazy. What has happened on Mars? The asteroid showers have long ended but why the Martians don’t seem to fly back? 

Some planned to visit the cave on Mars but some rather stay and maybe, wait? One thing is that the Venusians who flew to Mars forgot that no one is ever advised to visit the cave as they might be burnt by the dragons. And even if they cried out for the Martians, hmm, they would not step out unless the cave was falling apart.

And for the Venusians who chose to stay, they left behind all that should be left behind and walked. Not leaving the door closed blindly, they chose to keep it closed but they left the key outside. So that the Martians knew that it was always open when they chose to unlock it. And it’s not a big deal for them to cater for the attack on Mars. The Venusians had talked it out with some Martians before and not long after that, they decided to fly back to Earth. With the lights radiated by the Venusians, the Martians felt lighter and so they embraced the present together. For the Martians, the attack might be the worst that they have ever experienced but they were glad that the Venusians locked the door to keep them occupied for a while and yet still left the key outside for them to come in. 

And about the other Venusians, they chose to walk away and fly back to Venus. Aiming for a fresh start and hoping to turn over a new side of the leaf. Though frankly, it was not as easy as they thought it would be. Still, they thrived the days and shoved away all the thoughts about the long-disappeared Martians. They filled their days with a book of reflection, reflecting on everything that had happened. Reflecting on every little thing that they missed out on before. The brain was never this loud, but they tried to keep the volume low. Life on Venus felt pretty off and awkward at first. It’s been so long since they came back. They have been chasing and hoping to be a book of beautiful poetry yet they were all left unread. Maybe this time it’s for a good closure. But deep down inside they were hoping for another sequel. Would there be another sequel? Only God knows because when everything seems to be falling apart, the only One who holds the best glue is Him.

Meanwhile, the story on Mars remained unknown. Only the news on the asteroid's attack was heard but it was months ago. Was it really just an asteroid attack? Or there were more? Some Venusians tried asking the other Martians on earth, “Hey, how’s Mars?” But they couldn’t really say much. The nature on Mars and Venus has always been different. Words there don’t spread as fast as on Venus. Everything is kept inside a cage, hidden behind a thick wall. Only when you are called and asked, then it’s a SOS. If not, then no one should go any closer. It’s all different on Venus, words spread like water spilt on tissue paper. And the lights won’t go off in a room unless the story is told. While on Earth, both lives on Mars and Venus are bound into one. It requires the Martians and Venusians to complement one another. And to do that, it’s always a different episode for everyone.

They weren't told out loud but the thoughts did occur inside the Venusians' minds. "What is it that has been keeping the Martians inside their caves for so long? Isn't it dark and cold inside the cave? What does it really take for them to step out?".  Though the answers were pretty obvious to some Venusians, still. Out of habit, they care. 

Let's not be quick to pour out our two cents.

Because at times, what seems trivial to us might seem like the sky is falling for them.

Something might seem trivial and petty to us but to them, it might look like they are trapped in a dark tunnel.

Because we never guarantee one's capabilities at things.

Because we have different fears that sometimes what we think is normal, appears like a nightmare to them.

And because we have different strengths that sometimes we forgot they might be weak at that particular thing.

Let's not be quick to shove things in their mouths.

Something that seems easy as ABC to us might seem like a tall wall to them.

Something that seems bright to us might seem like losing eyesight to them.

Something we think is the best for them might be the worst path for them to journey.

Because we never know what lies ahead of us.

Because we never know how much they are trying.

And because we never know if we keep on repeating things that might break them apart even more.

Let's not be quick in making decisions for others.

Because we never know what is inside their minds.

Because we never know how heavy the stairs that fell on them.

Because we never know how much time they need to try again after failing for God knows the count of tries. 

And because we never know why they stop themselves even if they know the decision is the best.

Let's be careful with our speech.

Our words cut deeper when they are heard.

Our words stab harsher when they are read.

Because some words we used might be the last they would like to hear and read.

Let's be mindful of our minds.

Because sometimes we judge them too easily.

Because sometimes we think their worries are picayune.

We are never obliged to speak our minds when they tell us stories.

We are never obliged to give advice.

Sometimes what they need is a pair of ears to listen, a pair of eyes to read, a pair of arms to hug, and a pair of sealed lips.

Sometimes they are aware that they might seem unreasonable but they just need someone to be by their side for a short moment.

And sometimes, we could be the 'we' and we could be the 'them'.

After a very very long hiatus from publishing my random thoughts and philosophies, I finally come to a conclusion that I really need to write whenever I feel like I need to blurt something out. Actually, I don't fully stop writing, I've been drafting about all the suggestions that are given by some of my peeps. Well, maybe when I find a really good timing, I could talk about those amazing nuts. I mean those nuts that are hard to crack. 

So, today, on the 17th of July with an academic writing that has been darting its due date right into my brain, wondering why haven't I begin to write and tick off the assignment... I choose to write this non-academic writing instead. Well, technically everything that I wrote here barely has anything to do with academics but I believe it's a cure for my mental :)

Cut the intro and what's about the entry's title? 

...

Yellow card?

As we all know, when we are in a game like a football game, the referee will pull a yellow card out of his pocket as a warning to caution the player's offensive behaviour. Whether it's for foul play, foul action, or foul language used in the game. Simply put, a yellow card is a synonym for a meaning that implies an early warning. So, I was thinking about this yesterday...

"How about we try to pull yellow cards in our life too?"

Yellow card for not only others but for us, ourselves. How does that sound?

Let me put this in a clearer context. I'll begin with a yellow card for others.

At times, we are hurt by some people. Whether our friends, strangers, family members, teachers, colleagues, and many others. Sometimes people hurt us without knowing that they are hurting us. Like they forgot that they need to turn off the boiler once it screams the piercing sound. So, when we are hurting, we begin to be numb in the middle of choosing them or us. Whether to stay away or to forgive and remain there. Like, what if the person that hurt us is our good friend? What if they are our parents or siblings? Maybe they are our colleagues that we need to work on a project together for a year? Or, maybe they are just a mere stranger that we will not meet ever again.

If they are strangers, then it would be easy for us to just brush it off or stand up for ourselves. We don’t need to think hard if we want to send them some signs that we are pissed off. To a degree, we even blow our top off and yell at them if they did something wrong to us like throwing shades on us in public when they don’t even know us.

But what if they are all those people that are listed before strangers? I believe it is surely hard for us to call out our parents right away. Or, shout to our friends, “What is your problem!” before we think at least for once. We will think that no matter how we are hurt by them, the thoughts of their feelings might get hurt when we fight back will cross our minds.

So, this is when we need a yellow card. When we don’t know how to decide, but one thing that we all know for sure is that we are hurting. For example, we are hurt by our friends because they said something that cut our hearts. We can pull out the yellow card to them,

“Beep! Your words are too much, mate. This is a yellow card for you. Once again, and it will be red.”

Or maybe for our parents when they seem to not understand our feelings when we said that we are tired,

“Beep! Mom and dad, this is a yellow card for you guys. I’ll be in my room for a good rest. We’ll talk again later.”

Some might say, “Nahhh, this not going to work. They will surely fire us back, telling us that we are spitting nonsense.”

Nope. For me, it will work. Imagine and try to say that out of a sudden. People will surely be like, what? But will they stop talking at that moment? Yes. Will they realize that we hate or are uninterested in whatever they are saying? Yes. Do we avoid a worse fight? Yes. At least, they will know how we feel. Plus, in some games, if the player was given a yellow card, they are given a penalty to stay out of the field for a moment. Somehow this is related with the concept I'm talking about. When we pulled out the yellow card for others, it's like we are telling them that they are out of the conversation and we want to take a break from talking to them or doing anything with them at that time. 

Keep it cool and classy, but strictly stating how annoyed we are at that very moment. I think we all need to have a little pause in between the conversations. Before we all lose our cool and you know, begin to spit out all our wrath which later we might get angry at ourselves because we are regretting it. Now, I’m teaching myself to remain composed even when I am madly annoyed with someone. My good friends especially know how crazy the look in my eyes when I was mad at someone. And, I would like to change that. Why? Because I will regret and reflect on why did I get mad at that person. Why did I lose my cool earlier? Why did I do that? Why did I say that? I will think about those things and I will hate myself. That’s unhealthy. Like gulping litres of cooking oil after an exhausting run. I ran because I’m angry but then I drank the oil. Come on, that’s so silly.

Hence, to at least make sure we keep our cool when we are boiling with anger and annoyance, we can try to pull out the yellow cards. Yellow card when someone looked down on us, yellow card when someone said something bad to us, yellow card when people thought their jokes are funny which actually it’s a pure blade that cuts, and et cetera. Of course, we can be mad if we want. But I personally think that we might find it difficult to reconcile once we calmed down. The yellow cards that I’m suggesting right now are like a temporary line that we draw between others and us in those ugly moments. It’s not like we are being overly sensitive or making jokes over our feelings. It's just we are trying to keep calm for our good sake. I will begin to pull some yellow cards too from now on. To not let myself regret when I do some self-reflections at the end of the day.

 ...

Next! Yellow card for us. Or we can change the pronoun into me?

How does that mean? Yellow card for ourselves or me is like when we are aware of the fact that we are actually doing things that hurt us. Oh, let’s just be frank in this. We do hurt ourselves, aren’t we? We blame ourselves for something that is not even our fault at first, we get mad at ourselves for being stupid, we blame ourselves for not getting good grades, we overthink, we think that we are not good enough, and the list goes on. At one point, I could just conclude that the one that hurts me the most is myself. Oh, mate. Yellow cards for those craps!

So, when our thoughts begin to drift sooo far away and slowly losing their radar, we pull the yellow card.

“BEEP! Yellow card for me!”

I tried this yesterday when I was washing my hands and I was thinking about those ugly thoughts like what if and what if. Then, I shook my head.

“Beep! Yellow card for you, Nadia! Why would you think of that?”

So, I stopped myself from thinking those thoughts right away. Well, again. Some might say,

“Nahh, that’s only applicable to you, ignorant! You made the rules of course you obey it.”

Nope. Hear me out because I’m being honest now. This person that is writing all these now named Nadia who was born on 19^th November is a real stubborn one. Like, I’ve been telling people this and that yet I’m the one who throws myself in the pit. Silly. I’ve been telling people to take it slow yet I’m the one who keeps rushing myself like there’s no second chance for a mistake. Goshhh, talking about making a mistake? Even a single typo freaks me out. I could not bear seeing myself making a mistake, failing a goal that I have set. I’m toxic for myself. And that’s surely unhealthy.

That’s why I love to write. Because when I read everything that I have written, I would reflect on myself. “See, you wrote that. Come on, Nadia. You surely know how to handle this.”

I’m hoping that pulling the yellow cards for myself could simply remind me that I deserve a pause. A pause for me to take things slow. A pause for me from not getting mad at myself over a petty mistake. A pause for me to stop hurting myself. A pause for me to not shove all the blames into my mouth.

And, I’m hoping the same for you guys too. Let’s stop hurting ourselves with these negative thoughts that to an extent we are even losing ourselves. Let’s be good to ourselves because by then we could be good to others. Let’s embrace ourselves so that we could embrace others.

Easy? No. I never mention that everything would be easy. If Albus Dumbledore said that it takes a great deal of bravery to stand up against our enemies but standing up to our friends are just as much… I would add that standing up against ourselves requires even bigger courage. If we are a good friend to others, how about we try to be a good friend for ourselves too. Don’t only feed others with good foods, we deserve some Great Chicken Burgers too. (Now, I crave a GCB.)

 ...

Whooppss, reaching 1800 words now. I could write almost 2 academic writings with these much. Lol.

Anyway, I wish all of us could find the subtle happiness within ourselves and how amazing it would be if we could embrace ourselves. So, don’t be afraid to pull out the yellow cards!

Know when we should put a pause and give ourselves a moment to think wisely and be cool. I feel glad that I could finish this one. Sorry not sorry for the long write up! May all your days be sparkled with shiny glitters!

With love, ❤

Phew, for me insecurity is an issue that we have with our inner self. We are arguing with ourselves, telling how we are far than being enough and asking “why am I not like them?” To be very very very honest, insecurities are applied differently for everyone. Some people might feel insecure with how they look, how they talk, how they walk, how they appear in front of the public, how they will be the talk of others, how they are seen in someone’s eyes, and et cetera. Trust me, it would be a super long list if I were about to list one by one. Why? Because like I mentioned before, it applied differently to everyone. Maybe I feel insecure about how I look but maybe you’re not. And ofc, vice versa. I may not feel what you feel and that’s how hard it is when insecurities attacked us. However, just so you know that, being insecure is a nature side of humans. Sometimes we tend to doubt things we have around us and feel insecure. So, you are not alone in this. ^^

Insecurities. I have tons of them too. I hate it when I feel insecure about what I do. For real, insecurities really block my freedom to do things that I love. That’s why if you see me going back and forth, that’s mean this awful toxic is attacking me. Well, before this I tend to just… you know like keeping myself in the dark and stopping myself from doing the things that I want. As I’m scared of what people might think about me. And that I must say, ladies and gentlemen, that is incredibly annoying! We can do whatever we love to but because of these insecurities that we have, they stopped us from doing so.

But now, I try my best to fight with the insecurities that I have inside my head. I began to realize that I should fight with my insecurities when a friend of mine, F slapped me with her words. I asked her why she hasn’t posted anything on socmed after a while and she said to me, “well, at least I posted pictures and not deleting them like you (savage lol).”  And right at that moment, my friends… A silent moment for me. Her words really slapped me with a sense of realization. It’s like I woke up in reality again after living in darkness for quite a long time. So, now, I encourage myself to fight with my insecurities for a better living. And, I don’t want my hair to grow grey at the age of 19 because of stress and tensions. (facepalm)

Let me give you some heads up on how I fight my insecurities. I will put it in context when we want to post something on socmed. The reason why I choose this context is that I think many of us start to feel insecure when we spend time scrolling and watching others live their lives on social media. Our minds trigger us to feel insecure as we saw someone that we think better than us and sadly we compare ourselves with what we saw. :’).

My early phase of fighting insecurities:

Firstly, whenever I want to post something on socmed, obviously I will pick something that has little chance of triggering my insecurities. I make sure, it’s good enough in my eyes and I love it that way. Reason? I want to feel satisfied with what I do and so that I won’t be disturbed by such thoughts.

Next, I make sure what I write (for example: caption) has no errors. No typos and such because these things will trigger my insecurities.

Then, I re-check everything. Check the picture if it looks okay or not and check the words I wrote.

Lastly, when I feel satisfied with it, I post it.

Okay, this is the early phase of how I fight my insecurities when I want to post something on socmed. It did work for me but I think the little percentage of ‘perfectionist’ trait of myself wasn't come in handy. So, I decided to throw that away. Scratch those and think of other ways. And, now this is how I counter my insecurities with my own philosophy:

1. Set things according to my preference.

-         I used to hate it when someone leaves me on seen so I turned off my seen receipt. But now, I don’t want to care anymore if people want to reply or not because I get lazy to care too. So, I turned on my seen receipt and last seen. It makes my works easier especially when I need a fast response as I’m not a patient human being so making the ticks blue is quite good. However, it depends on you okay :) We are different. So, if you are a type of person that the opposite of myself,  I suggest you turn off your seen receipt. As you wouldn’t need to care anymore if the person read or left you on seen or feel guilty because you left someone on seen (especially when it reached the end of the conversation). It’s like we counter our insecurities with things that put us in our comfort zone.

-        While on socmed, if we feel like getting replies or comments make us feel insecure with what we posted, then we can set it according to our preference. You can just turn off the reply and comment so that you don’t need to care about what people will say. And when you feel you’re okay with them then you turn it on again. 

2. I tell myself that “no one really cares.”

-         For this one, I literally just clown myself and told myself that “Nadia, no one care about it so why did you put your ass on fire?” Okay, let's take this in a positive way. What I meant  is, sometimes we thought people pay attention to what we did. But actually, only a minority that really pays attention to the details. After some reflections I did with my inner self, I came to realize that why did I feel insecure with abstract things. Or maybe something that I wasn’t sure if they will happen or not. No one really tells us, right? Like no one slide to our DMs and says, “why did you post this? It’s ugly.” Or “Em, Nadia, I don’t like your writings.” Or maybe, they criticize us super negatively and not encouraging us at all for the sake of improving. If we encounter those sorts of responses, we should just block those negativity. But for real, most people will just ignore or judge us in silence if they seem not interested in what we do. On a side note, maybe we are the ones who think too much when they might not even notice what we noticed. 

-        The same goes when we feel insecure with our past. Sometimes, we keep on being haunted by our memories especially the embarrassing one. In this case, I do insecure about my past. As I grow tired of worrying and being insecure, I told myself that there’s no need for me to think or care that much about what happened in the past. Because the world probably don’t even remember what happened. Hence, no need to keep ourselves in the dark because of the past we had. I learned something from Mufti Menk when he tweeted;

"No matter how much you regret it or worry about what happened, the past is over. You can’t change a thing. But, you can come to terms with the fact that everything happens for a reason. Live the present where the Almighty has given you the options to restore calm to your heart.”

Those were amazingly beautiful words written by him. And, I absolutely agree with it. The past is past and we should live in the present. Accept and embrace what had happened in the past so that we could restore the peace of our hearts.

3. Delete or let it stay.

-         Delete is applied whenever we feel like we don’t want to think much about it anymore. For example, we feel insecure about what we posted so we delete it because we don’t want to be disturbed with such thought. By doing this, it doesn’t mean that we are weak because we gave in to the insecurities thoughts. But, it’s actually like we put a stop to a nonsense argument with someone who won’t accept all the facts we said. So, if it occurs to you that way, then just delete it. 

-         Let it stay is applied when we don’t want to delete something that we love. It would be a waste if we delete something that we love after spending our time and efforts in editing and writing and et cetera. So, just let it stay and ignore those disturbing thoughts. There are so many ways to ignore it. For example, no need to click and see it again, or you could also just uninstall the app. I do uninstall Instagram if I feel insecure and when I did that, my inner chaos finally found its peace.

I came to a conclusion that I should just continue doing what I love and what I want by putting all the ugly insecurities thought aside. Insecurity is really a poison in one’s mind as it could lead one to a never-ending tunnel. Our mental health are also at risk if we keep on feeding our minds with insecurities. Everything that I wrote maybe not suitable to everyone but I wish you guys all the best in fighting with the insecurities that you have. I believe that our willpower are super important in fighting the evil insecurities that we have in our minds. No one can do better than us in that battle. However, don’t push ourselves too hard. Take it slow and encourage ourselves to find happiness within us. I'm still working on handling my insecurities too. Slowly but surely ^^ I’m not really good at giving away tips or life lessons. That’s not a forte’ of mine as I have a lot in my bucket that I need to fix too. Anyway, do share me your heads up too on how we can fight the super annoying insecurities for the sake of our happiness. ^^

Ps, everything that I wrote above are merely my ways of fighting the insecurities that I have. We also should bear in mind that we are more than enough. We should not compare ourselves with others because that will totally make us down and not happy with ourselves. :)

Pss, I'm sorry if my way of handling my insecurities seems like I'm being hard on myself or improper. I am.. sometimes... being hard on myself. Maybe because, i had enough with my insecurities. So, I'm taking it this way. I don't expect you to do the same thing as I am. As humans are different and solutions are all subjective ^^ 

Oh and, here I left a link to an article about insecurities. 

https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/health-fitness/mental-health/what-to-do-and-not-do-when-you-feel-insecure?utm_source=sciam&utm_campaign=sciam

Best regards, take care and stay safe.

with love, ❤

Anyway, before I start my unplanned hiatus, I asked my friends for some ideas to write. And, apparently. A friend of mine, W responded with her question which makes me begin to wonder about the same thing too. 

"How to know whether we are being ourselves or not?"

If I could separate the inner self of my body and communicate with it, I probably ask the same question. And, I think it might take a long time to finally come up with an answer. To begin with, I would say that no humans know us better than ourselves. Which in some ways, we are the one who knows what we really want or in other words, how we would like to appear as in this world. The expectation, the imagination of ourselves walking on the earth and even what kind of clothes that we would like to wear every day. 

Everyone is different in terms of everything. Well, maybe there's a bit of similarity between your preferences and my preferences but the differences are much bigger than that general preferences we are talking about. As in, we both might love spicy foods but maybe I hate to see chilies on my plate, but you love seeing chilies in your meal. That's the difference. Hence, to connect the dots to W's question above...

My little cents would be that if we are being ourselves, it means we are ready to;

“Check back our bucket lists, have we made it or not. If we haven’t, then why? What’s stopping us? Get the answers and rewrite our plans to achieve our goals.”

All the goals we set in our lives could be one of the indicators that can show us if we are being the real us or not. Why? It’s because we all have different goals in life. And, I'm repeating it, we are all different. People around us don't know our goals in life so how would they know if we're being ourselves or not. "What are my goals in this life?" This is a hard question that we need to ask ourselves. Flip back our diaries, go through our bucket lists again and see what we once set in our mind on how we would like to live our lives to the fullest. However, here I also would like to remind you that it doesn’t necessarily mean that we are a complete failure or totally not ourselves if some of the goals missed the targets. For example, I wish to become a doctor before, but now I'm on my way to become a teacher. That, that doesn't mean I'm not being myself (facepalm). This type of goal is likely depending on God's wills. We planned, but God plans are the best for us. We must believe that.

The goals I mentioned above are more on how we imagine ourselves as one day and if in present days, we are not like what we imagined, then we should reflect on what's stopping us from being one. Like before, I always imagine myself as a person who is calm and can manage my anger in a good way, but now I'm all the way too grumpy, too cranky, and too annoying. If it went like this then, I should ask myself what's stopping me from achieving that one goal of mine. As I dug further, I found myself trapped in dissatisfaction and unfair judgments that were made on myself, so it turned me into a person I never want to be. And, that could be a slap on my face as I realized, I have turned into a monster that is not myself. But then again, should I just let go of the goal I set and continue being the grumpy one? Nope! For that! We will call it as a negative change. And negative things should be flicked away from our soul. Hence, I should rewrite my plans in order to achieve the goals that I once set which is to become a calm person. Maybe, the plans could be like ‘I should tape my mouth when I want to vent out my anger. Or maybe I should walk away and do something I love to just let it slide.’ These might get you like “Em hello Nadia, will those work? Won’t it be worse? Suppressing anger could turn fatal.” But, nah, it’s okay. I know myself as someone who easily annoyed with someone who does things that against my logic or things that happened really in weird ways for me. So, maybe by practicing those I could teach myself to be calmer in some situations that I could not control. This literally like I smacked my head and say, “not everything goes along your favors, you freak!” (◡‿◡)

Ps, we are all different, and you know who you are so of course, you have better plans for yourself. ^^

“Reflect our life goals and question ourselves, are these goals really me? Are these goals really good for me? Or it just some delulus expectations?”

Sometimes when we set our goals, we tend to think highly of what the future holds. Well, we should believe in ourselves as Norman Vincent Peale, the author of The Power of Positive Thinking, once said, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.” I always heard people quoting this. And, by chance, I happened to know the name of the person who said these meaningful words when I was searching for it. Anyway, I am agreeing with what he said. We shall aim high and believe in ourselves. However, we all know that we all have our unique capabilities in something. Everyone is not a genius who knows everything right in his mind. Some people know what you don’t and it’s vice versa. There’s nothing wrong with setting big goals but being realistic is another thing we should keep in mind. Some people gave up on their dreams because they are too focusing on the big dreams that they set till they forgot the capability and the power that they actually hold on the other things that they good at.

Nevertheless, I was once in that situation too. I have so many dreams and goals that I want to achieve ever since I was in primary school. I want to explore a lot of fields, be it medical, psychology, engineering, software, and many more. But, hahaha. I woke myself up and told myself that, it’s never wrong to dream but I should know where my real capability lies on. So, here, am encouraging you guys to set your goals and ask yourself if the goals are good for you. Or is it just some expectations. I would like to highlight this part as nowadays we tend to get influenced by a lot of things, especially from social media. When we scrolled our timeline and we saw people that have something we don’t have, we tend to mark our goals to be like them. And, the mistake we made is when we expect ourselves to be like them and from here the insecurities hit us! Like I previously mentioned, there’s nothing wrong with setting your goals high but just remember your capability. It’s not like I’m saying no need to dream, you never gonna be like them. But here what I want to state is that, don’t push yourself too hard because only you, yourself know how you work things out.  The goals are not only on materials and how you imagine yourself living in a big mansion in the future. However, it also involves your goals on how you want to appear on earth. In a simpler way, you might look great when you use this product but maybe it could irritate my skin when I use it. Not everything is for everyone. And, expectations do kills because some things are not within our reach. :)

“Open up, be honest to yourself.”

Allow yourself to stop and ponder what is best for you. If you think it’s not, then it’s okay to change.

We all know if we do something against the borders. Like when we are in a country, we must follow the rules and laws. Same goes as in Islam, we have the Syaria’ that we obliged to follow. The guidelines that I believe all religions have lined out to the believers. The dos and the don’ts. Hence, don’t lie to yourself. Listen to your inner voice. Pay attention to the intuitions you have in your gut. We all know what’s right and wrong. If we are wrong, then how about we change the route on our ‘GPS’ so that we could achieve our life goals but in a better and safer path. For example, we would like to go to our dream palace, and it has many routes to reach there. One route filled with joy and funs, so we chose that. As we walked, we sensed that the route is filled with thorns and it’s hurting us. You realized it might risk our safety, but we lie to ourselves saying “It’s okay. The thorns are nothing compared to the joys along the route.” And as we continued, we realized that our body bleed more than we thought, and it makes us weaker. Try to imagine if we stop when we started to sense something is wrong with the route we took and make a calculation again. We can avoid the thorns by choosing other safer routes to reach the palace. The route might fill with boredom and no funs but remember, the real joys wait for us later when we reach the palace. So, never lie to yourself. Be true. Trust your intuitions and hunch.  We all make mistakes but the moment we realized our mistakes, embrace it, and come up with different ways to not repeating the same mistakes.

“Accept and stop dwelling in the past.”

This is a hard nut to crack. Accepting what we have done and experienced in the past is indeed never an easy thing to do in life. Sometimes we made a wrong choice and we regret it, or we happened to experience some ugly incidents that haunting us like ghosts in our nightmares. However, one thing we should know that when we dwell in the past, we are like pushing ourselves in the deep sea with a metal ball chained on our feet. It makes us harder to swim back to the land as the heavy metal ball pulled us deep down the sea. Close your eyes and imagine, what would you do if you were in that situation for real? Imagine the heavy metal ball chained to your feet as the past you chained to your mind. In order to save your lives, are you going to let the metal ball chained to your feet? Or are you going to muster all the courage and try to unchain the metal ball off your feet though little struggles are required to do so? Which one would you choose? If you chose the former one, man, I’m telling you. You are insane (facepalm). But if you chose the latter, then I would praise you for your courage. What’s worth more than a try, right? To be honest, I also have a problem with letting go of my past too, and that makes me insecure with everything in my life. So, what I mentioned above is for myself too. Maybe with some little courage, we can finally free from our past. Let’s start putting a stop to all the miseries, shall we? ^^

“Embrace your differences and flaws.”

We all need to keep this one in the back of our mine. We all have our beauties and flaws in some ways. Maybe I have flaws in something that you excel at. So, again, we are all different. By the time, we accept our flaws, that means we are closer to be our real selves. As no one is perfect in this world and even if you think someone is perfect, maybe that’s from your perspectives. And, by the time you start to compare yourself with others, that’s when you start to hate yourself. You start to hate yourself because of the flaws you have. That’s why, the world needs to normalize not to idolize something too much till it can lead us to question ourselves, “Why do I have flaws? Ugh.” The major standard is taken as if it is the big picture we must be. No biggie but I do believe that there’s nothing wrong with idolizing something if that could be a fire to ignite your spirit but it became all over the mess when you expect yourself to be exactly like them and when you start to downgrade yourself. That’s a no-no, okay.

“Shut your ears to negativity and insecurities thoughts.”

Have you ever heard your mind telling you that you are not good enough? Or maybe, it told you that you are totally below the standard. If we would like to know whether we are being ourselves or not, this could be other indicators too. The moment we can find a way to shut our ears to block those negativity and insecurities thoughts, that’s when we are being ourselves. Why? Because that means we are accepting ourselves the way we are. (Making this short as the how’s and why’s could be found in previous points.) ^^

“They hate me, but don’t worry, I love me!”

Keeping the best for the last one. Love yourself. You could put this as the top priority if you’re being asked what’s the reason behind all your efforts to get yourself back on track. When we love ourselves (in positive ways), it means, we truly love ourselves for being who we are. We accept the flaws we have, we accept our capabilities, and we accept our existence. It’s like when you love something, people might wonder why you love that but who cares, as long as you love it and that’s more than enough. In other perspectives. Initially, we all have the original state of ourselves. In deeper meaning, we all have our characters and personalities to begin our lives with. And, due to some other factors, we are influenced by some changes. Originally, we are strong and confident with being us, but, then insecurities hit. And, bam! Where have the strength and confidence gone to? :(

Originally, we are calm but then the past is haunting us, we became a person with too many grudges kept underneath our breath.  We began to question ourselves about everything that we do, and everything that we have. And when that happened people, we are likely to be said as, doubting. Doubting ourselves. We doubt our life choices, appearances, et cetera.

If we would like to be the real us then we should accept our life nature, our past, and our existence. We are all human beings; we are not superheroes that can change into other versions only by wearing costumes. To gather the courage and finally embrace the scars we have in our lives are not easy. The real key is never to give up on yourself. Never give up loving yourself. Give yourself time to deeply take a breath and exhale all the hurting miseries.  One day, you surely can face the world with confidence and smile.

All in all, I hope my points are clear enough to make you understand what I would like to deliver, huhu :’)

This one is so long, and I feel like writing my coursework hahaha.

Sorry for the lengthy writing. Take care and stay safe!

Much love, ❤