2019

A remarkable teacher of mine passed away by a heart attack and my good friend passed away on a major car crash. Both happen so suddenly, without any warning nor prediction.

My childhood friend, one that I used to be so close with, got married by accident. It got me pretty traumatic, guilty, and shocked for more than a month.

Dad lost his voice in the election. Not so long after that, he got into the parliament as the party's representative, and everything was slowly improving. But then it comes to an end.

This year I got to drive a car on my own, but also the time where I have to let go of my ride.

This year was the time where I got struck by a lot of bitter stories from the past that leads me to try very, very hard to made peace with my past, my closest circle, and the present situation.

But out of all things happened... This year, I have finally achieved self-acceptance after years of struggling with it. It was not easy at all and it takes a lot of time, courage, and process. This year, I went to Japan with my own money after two years of having it on the bucket list. This year, I am surrounded by the most loving friends that got my back.  This year, I also met the most amazing people that bring me to a lot of good experience, memory, self-growth, and countless blessings.

I might say my 2019 was rough, but the blessings I had this year was infinite it covers up the wounds. I believe the universe will always try to keep its balance if we keep believing. I deeply realize there are more untold stories out there that are worse than my side story. Nobody said it was easy, but look; We made it. Here's to a fresh start. One thing I wished for 2020; I hope everyone let everyone be happy.

Hear the unheard voices

I always trust my inner monologues, no matter how often it argues with me. For me, gut feeling and inner monologue are my best friends. They always help me with every decision that I have to make by myself. I dedicate this post to myself, to keep it as a self-reminder whenever I feel lost.

It may not be easy to trust the inner monologues, I also have doubts about them sometimes. But for me, having more confidence about yourself will help to sharpen the mind, that will leads to good inner monologues. I tried to apply this to my daily activities during work and everything else, and apparently, it works... So here are some important things I would like to keep, as follows:

First, I will work on my own brief. I don't always get a good brief. So I created one for myself to work on. I found it hard to work without a good brief; I feel lost, I don't know what to create, and I can't understand the purpose of my creation. Whenever I got a bad brief, I always try to translate it into my own words and the kind of brief that seems easier for me to work on. The brief that I created myself does not always have to be written, as long as I keep it clear on my mind. At the end of the day, I always find it easier to work that way. Besides I can understand my work even better, I don't have to rant about the bad brief that I got previously because hey, I can get through it!

In this case, my inner monologue always helps me out to set the so-called much easier brief for me to work on. First I always ask myself, what is the purpose of this creation? What kind of message that it wants to deliver? What are the things that I need to add or remove, in order to make it works? What does the client want, but can't be described briefly? How do I combine my idea with their needs? Could they work together? As the questions are popping out, the answer will follow and it will help to guide me through the brief and the work itself.

Then, I will always try to look and feel deeper. I solemnly realized how I need to be more critical and sensitive about everything I see. Sometimes I forgot to be more critical about the things that my eyes are consuming. Departing from the thought, from now on especially when I am feeding my brain and eyes, I always let my inner monologue asks a lot of things. How does it work? How could it happen to be that way? What makes it look good? Why does it use such amount of space?

And last but not least... I will try to stop making sense and not forget to have fun. Let me say this out loud. To my dear self, not everything has to make sense! When was the last time I didn't think too much over something? As much as I hate to admit this, I am an over-thinker. I think through things way too much sometimes I forgot about the fun part. Thanks to my inner monologue, sometimes it whispers to me to not forget to have fun. Things don't always have to work the way it should work, unexpected things won't always be the bad guy, there is always something worth to find out in new things, and don't ever limit yourself in order to make everything looks perfect.

Again... trusting my inner monologue helps me to keep me sane, as corny as it sounds. It really helps me to let go of a lot of unnecessary thoughts that could lead to stress. I will always try to listen deeper, hearing the unheard voices.