ROOM FOR FAILURE

I gave myself a month to settle into the new year and... Nope, I'm still very much in the holiday spirit. The thought of work and all its incessant nonsense is too draining. As much as I'm conflicted about my job, I've decided not to quit.

Ugh.

We tend to not leave room for failures and leave when things don't go the way we imagine them to be. But we need to understand that life isn't all about satisfying our desires and our wants and finding things that fit our mould of what defines happiness. 

You don't just quit when your expectations are not met. I'm not encouraging people to continue sucking up and sticking around an unhappy relationship or a bad working environment. But I'm saying that we should pick out what makes it awful and at least try fixing it before calling it quits.

Many times we don't simply get into a "good" job or get into a "good" relationship. Once reality sets in and things go a little beyond that "nice working environment" and "nice boyfriend" phase, we have to make a conscious effort to maintain them and make them, in your definition, "good".

I'm not exactly in a perfect job right now. I don't have a decent pay increment, my working hours are usually crappy, I don't get offs even when I work weekends during a long-term project, I don't get any OT pay, my bonuses depend on my bosses' moods... I'm unhappy. But my friends are far off worse than me and yet they're still trying to make their jobs work. So will I. Not quitting unless it's abusive.

Meanwhile I'm just gonna be a regular worker who is dying to get off work and dreams of holidays and flying sushi.

CUE TEARS

CHICKEN REVELATION

Secret

This was how it could be done. This was how you lived with a terrible secret. You just did it. You pretended everything was fine. You ignored the deep, cramp-like pain in your stomach. You somehow anesthetized yourself so that nothing felt that bad, but nothing felt that good either.

^$*&$%&@

This is something a Type A girl hates to admit: MY LIFE IS A MESS.

I hated January, as much as, if not more, than 2013, which sucked. So many commas. 

Everything seems to be snowballing into a giant ball of dirty laundry. There's this disgusting trend that I've been creating and I just can't help it -- The desire to be in control of my life till the very decision of what I'm putting into my mouth, yet allowing everything else that swims around my life to spin out of control. 

It's like, my calendar is yummy but my room looks as if a tornado ran through it.

My clothes have been mysteriously disappearing and thus I keep buying more to make up for that. I need to put a shopping ban on myself. The issue here isn't that there's a perv stealing all my underwear and garments - this treasure hunt is self created. Both my tabletop and my floor, has now turned into my wardrobe. Epiphany: I've created two tiny hills in my room. I'm not even exaggerating.

And my dog sleeps on it.

The bedroom reflects the life. Whenever my life is a mess, it shows up in my room. My relationship with The Boyfriend is as screwed up as my makeshift hill of clothes. And we're regretful and frustrated. Lots of tears and self inflicted pain and broken hearts. But we're praying and crying out loud to God to take control of our relationship. We can't do it alone.

And my relationship with work is… obviously sore. It's as stale as a slice of rotten cheese. I wish I could go on talking about it, which sometimes makes me feel better. But then again, I really can't put myself through talking about my failure anymore so I decided against it.

In all, my unorganized life is disgusting. I need to reorganize. 

METAMORPHOSIS

WE'LL ALL BE OKAY

But we all end up, one way or another, okay. We’re all on different rides, but they all end the same way. You do not need somebody else’s love to be whole. You do not need their permission to go on with your life. What you do need is your own love. You need to let yourself go on. Their love isn’t stopping you, because that love doesn’t exist. It is only you who is holding onto what you believe should be. And what you will realize, sooner or later, is that most of your life is defined and chosen by what you compel yourself to believe should or shouldn’t be. Release yourself from the cage you built. You hold the key to your own freedom.

THE BRAIN CAN GET SICK TOO

Quit whining and get to it. Quit micro managing and start relaxing. Quit brooding and get over it. Quit being depressed 'cos others have it worse than you.

The brain can get sick too. End mental health stigma.

DATING AFTER MARRIAGE

I encourage you to date your spouse, pursue them whole-heartedly, and understand that dating shouldn’t end just because you said "I do". -- Jarrid Wilson

FIRST DAY OF WORK IN 2014

Track back to my post last year in 2013.

I was so much determined and happier then. But because 2013 ended so badly, I wasn't that keen on stepping into 2014. I can't even remember what happened last year. It happened so fast, and before I know it, it ended. Let me try to recall...

No, I can't remember anything significant except working my ass off for the feature film. You mean that was all I could conclude for the year? Not nice, Jo.

2013, I was too self absorbed --
My bank statements were all bills from boutiques and expensive restaurants.
I lost control of my life and my plans.
I stopped exercising midway through the year.
I worried too much.
But I also procrastinated and lazed around way more than I should.
I doubted my capabilities.
I was always insecure.
I hated on too many things and too many people.
I listened to my own head more than I listened to God.

2014, I'm determined to focus on the right things and set my path straight --
Stop going for just the materialistic goals and work on things that truly matters.
Take control of my life by actually setting out to do what I planned to do.
Start going back to pilates, running, and skipping.
Stop worrying and start hoping.
Quit being lazy and start putting my best foot forward.
Start believing in myself.
Learn to let go and trust.
Stop hating and start forgiving and loving.
Lastly, letting God take control of my life and depend on Him rather than myself. I need to be a living testimony for him.

I'm not ready for you, 2014, but I'll try my best.

GOODBYE 2013

If 2013 is a vegetable, she'd be a cabbitch. I'm glad I divorced her. But 2014 seems more daunting with many more uncertainties. But isn't faith confidence in what we hope for, and assurance in what we do not see?

Delicious ambiguity.

FILLING THE VOID

"They say you don’t get over someone until you find someone or something better. As humans, we don’t deal well with emptiness. Any empty space must be filled. Immediately. The pain of emptiness is too strong. It compels the victim to fill that place. A single moment with that empty spot causes excruciating pain. That’s why we run from distraction to distraction—and from attachment to attachment." -- Yasmin Mogahed

IF I GOT RID OF MY DEMONS, I'D LOSE MY ANGELS

"It’s a strange thing, how you can love somebody, how you can be all eaten up inside with needing them—and they simply don’t need you. That’s all there is to it, and neither of you can do anything about it. And they’ll be the same way with someone else, and someone else will be the same way about you and it goes on and on—this desperate need—and only once in a rare million do the same two people need each other." -- Madeleine L’Engle

WE'RE ALL REPLACEABLE

Henry David Thoreau once said that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. It came to me, now at the end of my 24 year old journey, that there are things I will have to put behind, and they will pass an invisible boundary. New laws establish themselves, old laws expand and vanish.

Perhaps in proportion I should have simplified my life and so the laws of the universe will appear less complex. Perhaps then, will I be able to live with the license of a higher order of beings.

One could have guessed by now, yes, I'm stuck in this constant vicious endless cycle of my quarter life crisis. Bored with my existence, bored with the cynicism that I have to erase every morning, bored with every single shit that's happening in my life. 

No, we're not the hot, young, and talented. We're the most disposable and replaceable. And once disposed of we'll probably have to work for scraps again. Singapore creative industry's brutally uncertain market is the perfect clammy breeding ground for a quarter life crisis.

As much as pleasure and pride exist within such a vicious industry, dissatisfaction and uncertainness brews at each passing (and droning) day. You slug your way to work, you work your guts out, countless number of over-times unaccounted for... but at the end of the day you wonder where this dark tunnel leads to. Is a light waiting for you at the end of it or is there a dark hole waiting for you to fall in and crush your pathetic bones.

You’ve told many people, many times that, “you don’t care how much money you make, you just want to do what you love.” Nervously, you wondered how much money “not caring” really looks like. Backtrack. You wonder if all this is worth it. Is passion worth hauling your ass off?

Passion is cheap, asshole.

SURGE

Managing my emotions at work isn't easy. Anger, disappointment, betrayal... a whole pool of mixed emotions. So much that they overwhelm me and I'm finding it hard to contain them within me. Angry tears. They just flow.

It's disappointing that after anything up to 300 hours into the project, the project's final confrontation with The Boss is so unrewarding.

I'm just plain speechless now. That hate is slowly brewing. Can't wait to get out of this.

I COVET

SENSE OF ORDER

No reasonable person can still believe that imitation is the end of art. To do so is like saying that the writing of history consists in recording all the known facts. Every creative activity of the human race depends on selection, and selection implies both a power to perceive relationships and the existence of a pre-established pattern in the mind. Nor is this activity peculiar to the artist, scientist or historian. We measure, we match colours, we tell stories. All through the day we are committed to low-grade aesthetic activities. We are being abstract artists when we arrange our hair brushes, impressionists when we are suddenly charmed by a lilac shadow, and portrait painters when we see a revelation of character in the shape of a jaw. All these responses are wholly inexplicable and remain unrelated until a great artist unites and perpetuates them, and makes them convey his sense of order.

LESSON ON ENVY

I'm learning to deal with negative feelings, like envy and jealousy.

Envious of normal stuff. Women with more successful careers, things like that. I'm finding that if you try to resist your envy, it sticks around. But if you accept it as natural, don't judge yourself, and leave it as part of God's big plan for you, it will pass, like a cloud.

DON'T WE ALL MISS THIS

An Andalusian Dog (1929) by Luis Bunuel.

PICASSO BABY X THE ARTIST IS PRESENT

This is Jay-Z's performance art "Picasso Baby", that was inspired by one of my favorite performance artists, Marina Abramovic.

At Marina Abramovic's 2010 MoMa retrospective, she performed "The Artist Is Present" as part of the show, where she shared a minute of silence with each stranger who sat in front of her. Her ex lover, Ulay, arrived without her knowing.

Marina Abramovic and Ulay started an intense love story in the 70s, performing art out of the van they lived in. When they felt the relationship had run its course, they decided to walk the Great Wall of China, each from one end, meeting for one last big hug in the middle and never seeing each other again.

This is her performance at 2010 MoMa --