I stare at my reflection in the mirror
Why am I doing this to myself?
Losing my mind on a tiny error,
I nearly left the real me on the shelf.
No, no, no, no, no...
Don't lose who you are in the blur of the stars!
Seeing is deceiving, dreaming is believing,
It's okay not to be okay.
Sometimes it's hard to follow your heart.
Tears don't mean you're losing, everybody's bruising,
Just be true to who you are!
(Who You Are - Jessie J)
A second, a minute, an
hour, a day goes by. The earth never stops rotating and before I realized,
months has passed away. Christmas had long been gone and climate has started to
get warm. But here I am, leading and living this flat and toneless life that
has sadly become a part of my early 20s'. I used to have a lot of motivational
quotes covering the wall of my room. I always tried to get myself motivated and
avoid all the negativity whenever I was down. But instead of getting all the
positives vibes, I started to feel a gap between me and my true self. The
motivation began to work inversely and place me in an even more undesirable
position. Then later, I found myself going over this article about Internal and
External motivation and how it affects us psychologically.
Intrinsic and Extrinsic
Motivation
According to the
article, internal and external motivation both affect us in a different
mechanism. While it is healthy to have external motivation from people who do
well in some distinct field, many researchers believe that too much
external motivation could affect how our mind originate the internal
motivation. Hence, people will start to lose their true identity since they
have no handhold to hold on to. To put things in order, we have to maintain the
balance between both motivations and stick to our own value and belief. Never
lose our inner desire and the purpose of our life.
In my case, after doing
a deep thinking and tracing back to the root of the problems. I think it is
because I didn't have a clear goal set in my head from the very beginning. I
was studying Architecture when I first enrolled into college. I was pressured
for the whole 2 years in that department. Not because of the overwhelming
amount of homework, but because I never felt the joy that most students felt
during the studying process. I was assured that I was in the wrong place from
the very beginning but too afraid to face the truth. This is why I keep bathing
myself in all of that endless motivation, lying, avoiding the reality.
Things have started to
get better soon after I transferred into AFL. But the depression seems to like
me more than I thought. I still feel pretty much lost as before, only with much
more time and preparation to think about my life. But who knows, not only do I
have more time to reflect on myself, I also allow myself to be more vulnerable
to the negativity. My life becomes darker each day, I've lost the hobbies which
I used to cherish a lot (photography). In some of my worst day, I will avoid my
best friend (who are already far apart) and spend my time doing everything
alone, which is not much different than the usual but only this time, swallowed
up by all the dark clouds.
Right now, I am working
on accepting who I really am. Just like the lyric in Jessie J 'who you are'
song. (I shared it on the beginning of the post) I have to find back my true
self and to discover what my purpose in life is. The song meant a thousand words
and it often reminds me that I am not alone and sometimes, it's okay not to
feel okay. It's okay to be vulnerable, It's okay that you are feeling useless,
cause that is how your body response to yourself.
All my life, I have been
living in meeting up others expectation. It seemed like unconsciously, every
action I took were in the consideration to earn for people's recognition. I
didn't realize I was too busy living in all my ego that I never really consider
what my little tiny heart really want. So I have made a resolution, from this
moment on I will live my days for myself (in a positive way). I will try to
care less about people's opinion and be true to myself.
Transfer students are usually lonelier because of the new environment and new people. How about putting some photos when you are presenting your project? giving up on your hobby is quite not worthy. Depression is often a good mate with self-isolation. How about making connections with the surrounding first with your camera?
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