How to be happy?

This question has been on my mind constantly for the past few weeks or so. I thought I was happy but then some things happened and I wasn’t happy anymore. Then I realise I wasn’t happy for a long time. It is probably the time for me to get happy again!

I am not going into details… of whatever that has happened. A quote from one my favourite tv show, “Whatever happened, happened…“. So I shall move on!

This poster is really useful!
1) In order to be happy, you have to change something! This is fortunately easy for me. Because I knew what was causing my unhappiness. I am working towards making that change happens. Again, I am not going into much details as I just don’t feel like explaining the situation.  Coincidentally one of my classes of an new degree that I have taken up is on organisational change. One of the model I learn which is super useful is called Lewin’s change model. It is time to apply what I have learned!

2) Surrounded with positive quotes. I have been working towards a positive lifestyle for a couple of years. One of the things that I find useful is to surround myself with positive quotes. The most simple thing to do is to google “positive quotes”, print, cut and paste at the workstation. I am doing a minor revamp at my workstation so nothing much has been pasted yet. But I have done this previously and found it really useful. Other than positive quotes, it is also useful to print out stuffs related to a favourite tv shows. Another favourite quotes of mine from lost is “It only ends once. anything happens before that is just progress.” Being an avid reader, I find quotes from famous authors like George Orwell useful as well – “Happiness can exist only in acceptance.”

3) Don’t listen to others – except your close friends. I found out that a major mistake that I have made is that I talked to too many people. This causes my disrupted mind to be much more disrupted and I lost my direction. and yay unhappiness! One keep bugging me to give up on “something”. While I appreciated her concerns and advices, but it doesn’t help… at all. That “something” wasn’t contributing to my unhappiness. In fact, it was the very opposite. So I realise who are the real ones that I can talk to and I will keep it this way.  Talking about people, It is definitely important who you choose to hang out with. Remember this – Better be positive alone than with the negative crowd. =) 

4) Stay simple. I was watching this documentary on Youtube on Bhutan and Vanuatu. The citizens there are really happy. And that is because they have a simple life! Of course in order to do that, it is best to adopt to the “minimalism” lifestyle. As I was quite busy with stuffs for the past three months, I admit that I have not been thinking about my minimalism much. I will definitely pick this up again as I need to concentrate on exam for the time being.

5) Continue to enjoy what you love doing. I sort of lost myself…. and stop doing some stuffs that contributed to my happiness – e.g. reading a book and writing. So my happiness index dropped. It is important to know what you enjoy doing. I have a friend who told me she doesn’t know what she likes doing. Nobody can help you on this. Pick up a hobby and enjoy life.

6) Have a dream. I have a “dream” and I shall not elaborate on it hehehe. I realise a lot of people misunderstood my “dream”. It is a “dream” that keep me happy and alive. They thought that I wish for something to happen to that “dream”. But it doesn’t matter what kind of outcome I will have. It is something that keep me happy, that’s all I need!

7) Keep a journal. I talked too much lately but I realise they are not helping. I love writing and keeping  a journal is a great way to “vent” my frustration and reflects.

Weekly roundup

So a couple of days, I came across an post on Quora about journaling. This is my attempt to start journaling again. I should really be decluttering my brain as there is so much thoughts on my mind.

School
I have been working on my assignment for the whole weekend! Although the assignment is not due for another 3 weeks or so, I am quite stress by it. I really wanted to do well this time. I am not “talented” in… e.g. making decent conversation but I am okay with writing! So there shouldn’t be any excuse for me for not doing well. So with lots of water, coffee, tea, whatever… I aimed to complete it by today!

Other than that, exam is close. So I should really be spending my time revising. I probably keeping my lunch to a minimum. So that I can start revising as well. It is important that I aimed to do well so that I could get a good grade.

I mentioned about the presentation 2 weeks ago… I admitted that I didn’t prepare much as we are only required to speak 1-2mins and I was really sick. But I am glad that our content was good (Much better than others) and we passed with flying colour!

Kickstarter
So people who actually read my blog from the beginning would have know I was quite a kickstarter fan a few months ago! But since then, I haven’t been backing stuffs and I do not even want to look at that site anymore..

So what went wrong?
1) Pebble – I was proud of Pebble until they launched another product before they could deliver the actual product people backed. It is like they took our money and spend on developing another product at the same time. I don’t have the time to charge my pebble (being lazy busy hehe) so I no longer like smartwatch as much….
2) Holga Digital – Reading the KS comment, you can see that the actual product sucks. Some of them got spoiled camera. whatever. I haven’t get mine cos I ordered 2 and it is “special order” which they have yet to ship. It sucks cos I supported them by buying one more but….
3) Planetware – I was excited about this cos being an vegan/vegetarian, I love anything natural…. But there is still no shipping and eventually, it would be this way. Beside, I realise there is something in the market when I visited my local department store.. (!!!)

So its no longer exciting and the idea of Kickstarter not stepping in is eventually a terrible thing. I lost confident in backing these new companies. Of course not everyone will take your money and not deliver but I have to be careful…

Reading
I have been wanting to read a book for the past 2 weeks or so. Being sick, I wasn’t able to! I hope I would be able to start reading next week… Keeping up with reading is important as I don’t want my mood to disrupted for development.

The ending of ATV 
I woke up with a sad news… ATV has (officially) closed its door. I am not surprise if many people have not heard of ATV as the station has not been making decent productions for a long time. But back in those days, they have really great production. One of which is “My date with a vampire”. This was my first touch with SciFi! Perhaps it was cheaper to import ATV shows… my local television station imported a lot of their shows which is a nice change. HKTV who didn’t get the license have fabulous production! There is a new station called Viu TV starting in April. Not sure how good their production is but I am glad there is some competition coming up. TVB honestly have not been producing decent television show for a long time. Maybe I am not watching enough, but nothing really keep me interested.

Tea
Due to my sickness, I sort of cut down on coffee and drank more tea. I am not fussy about tea, so anything from flower tea to Chinese tea attracted me. Other than the packaged drink, I love all kinds of tea!

Misc
Last 2 weeks, I let my mood sunk due to my sickness. I am almost recovering from it and it is an important learning lesson for me.Definitely I need to improve on this and hopefully I would be able to face more challenges in future!

Self-reflection

It has been more than 6 hours since the “incident” and I am still trying to digest and process…

I have been emotional lately as I am having a tough life – I am sick with a bad cough, stress with assignments, having bad luck with love and just not feeling very positive. But something happened crippled me completely and I had a breakdown.

I always believe in fundamental human right. People have the freedom to do what they wanted as long as they don’t hurt another person. But I am wrong… Sometimes people are just too selfish and so “individualism” that they do not care for others. I wasn’t hurting anyone. I was making an effort to continue what I am supposed to do even though I am quite sick. I believed what I said was correct – If anyone can choose, nobody wanted to be sick. Everyone wanted to be healthy than to be in this sickening situation. Why was I being pushed over for being sickness that I didn’t choose. It was wrong to take away someone’s fundamental right just because someone feel that it is affecting others. You can suggest to that person… But it does not mean that someone have to follow what you suggested because this is not a policy that people should be following. We are all adult and professional. Why must a fellow human being be so restricted to being a “follower” in terms of a personal issue? Why can’t we have the freedom to be a “leader” and judge for ourselves since this is a personal issue? Maybe I wasn’t being sensitive enough. But this is the real world. A cough do not recover by miracle. Maybe taking an extra step by being more compassionate to a fellow human being is what we need. Humanity.

On the other hand, I know (and I am still doing it..) that I am terrible at handling emotion. And I am still learning!