Sunday, January 6, 2013
I am still in Boston. I love this place but part of me yearns to return to college because it marks the end of my holidays and the start of a new school term – because of this I still feel like the year hasn't started for real yet. And actually the only reason I want to go back is because I want to get the semester over with LOL.
Honestly there is no reason for writing this post. I was just reading some blogs and felt a sudden emotional surge and now I feel like writing but... What about, I'm not sure.
So I was reading blogs and this being the start of 2013, plenty of people have posted their New Year Resolutions. I'm no exception to making New Year Resolutions but this time round I'm just gonna keep them in my journal haha. But comparing my resolutions to that of other people's made me realize one thing: my resolutions are utterly self-centered hahahaha. Technically, though, since a resolution is kind of a wish that someone makes, doesn't that mean every resolution is, in some way or the other, selfish? Ok actually no, this doesn't make sense. Scratch that.
If who we are today is a sum of events of the past, then surely our New Year Resolutions are wishes inspired by these events. It's our dissatisfaction with some area of our lives, and our desire to fix these problem areas, that leads to the conception of our resolutions. And I realized... Every single one of my resolutions stem from bad decisions I have made in the past year. And the root of all these bad decisions is the inability to balance my emotions when it really counts.
Before getting on the plane to Boston my sister showed me this comic strip she'd read on weibo. I can't find it now, I'm not going to bother to look for this needle in the haystack that is the World Wide Web. It was in Chinese and was quite cute hahaha. But it came across with a serious message.
The comic strip began like this. It depicted a girl and boy who had dated for a long time, and they were very in love, in the way most young couples are. He wanted to study overseas, so she sacrificed her own dreams and worked to help supplement his tuition fees from schooling overseas. Her friends were naysayers and chastised her for working so excessively, asking her what the point was, but she said, "等他回来我就有好日子过了" (Yes I remember this verbatim from the comic), believing that with his return a life of bliss and happiness, and a caring partner who will provide for her would all fall into place at her feet .
That was not the case. The boy returned, the couple was reunited but soon they realized they had both changed. Their attitudes and the way they viewed life had changed drastically. Shall not go into the details of this (the way the artist sketched it made it very funny and since it's in Chinese, words in this language cannot aptly translate the true meaning of the comic), but anyway they found that unlike before they had nothing much to say to each other. 曾经有说不完的话题，可是如今却发现彼此已经无话可说了. Um ok it was actually described more poignantly than I had put it but I don't remember how hahaha.
In the end the guy broke up with her and told her that he would return her the money she had put towards his education in installments. Of course, she was heartbroken. And this is where the comic artist pictured the girl improving herself and becoming a better person by living her life for herself and not others. In the end she became extremely illustrious and her ex-boyfriend came crawling back to her but hilariously enough the last frame of the comic strip showed the girl kicking her ex-boyfriend aside and calling Wang Leehom asking him if he wanted to have dinner after his concert HAHAHA (it is implied that she had become so brilliant, she was dating Wang Leehom)
That is besides the point; what resonated with me the most was this statement from the comic – 为自己生活才是为自己最好的投资. (The comic artist surmised this point after explaining that by living for yourself, you would love yourself more and work to improve yourself, and you'd meet a better person whose conditions are level to yours)
I don't want this to be a rant about relationships because I'm sure everyone's tired of hearing me whine about relationships. A simple juxtaposition of my New Year Resolutions and the comic strip, though, has led me to this – in the coming year I am going to focus on making myself a better person. And on the road toward this end, a relationship will only get in the way so I'm not going to date. Lol although, well, it's highly unlikely I am going to date anyone anyway because the only two male friends I have in college are (confirmed/very likely) gay, American guys intimidate me, and I am transferring to an all-women's college.
But also one thing that's important to learn is that people do change, contrary to what we might believe. Sometimes (actually, very often), people change, feelings can disappear over time; time has that ability to erode and mold and reshape. People change, and there is nothing you can do about it. It is just life doing what it does and we shouldn't complain that life's a bitch because within ourselves, we are changing too but we just might not see it, or feel it. Like that couple in the comic strip lol. Time apart has reshaped them to be different people. I don't think it's the guy's fault for dumping the girl – as clichéd as it is, love cannot be forced. So whenever it feels like something bad happens, I'm just going to try my best to believe that it's happening for a good reason :-)
Ok I don't want to write anymore cos I want to sleep. /abrupt end of post
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