Lessons I want to preserve as a reminder for my future self --
1. You are more resilient than you think you are
You've learnt to adapt in every kind of circumstance, and whether you know it or not, you are always able to figure out a way to cope. Be it dancing, studying, or cooking. You are somehow able to stir up some sort of hobby or interest to keep your brain occupied and to keep you moving forward. And more importantly, you know how to make full use of resources to help you through painful experiences. You knew how to reach out. To lecturers/tutors in uni. To friends and family in personal life. Even to a psychologist for a few counselling sessions. That was really brave.
2. Trust the process more
It was a lot harder to see how things were going to pan out given how short my years were (and actually are! I will look back one day and think that 23 is still young). Though I will never discount how much I went through in my teens, I was still young and lacked the maturity and foresight anyone at that age would have. In college, I doubted the course I was doing. The course had lots of limitations to university choices and I received lots of flak from people for choosing a course that was setting me up for failure. It was fully out of chance and persuasion from a friend when I applied to my first choice uni in Melbourne and was the first person to ever get a successful acceptance and full credit transfer. It was safe to say no one saw it coming. Not even the head of the department believed I would get it.
No one would have imagined that I would have been able to revive my PR and be able to make Melbourne my permanent home. No one would have imagined that I would end up working in public service.
I will admit that some outcomes were received really positively (such as my uni acceptance and PR), but some not so. But I am slowly seeing the light with some of the other outcomes. I'm slowly starting to accept that this change of plans in my career is better for my mental health, especially in a pandemic. I've been able to nurture new hobbies and find joy in them. I'm still on the journey of knowing that everything happens for a reason even though all of my past experiences point to that truth. There's absolutely nothing I would change about my past decisions because every single one of them has led me to this point.
3. Continue investing in friendships and relationships
I think my view on people has really grown over the years. I had a horrible (and I will admit, borderline toxic) take on relationships and I think I have always subconsciously known that it was shaped by the experience of losing someone. I saw people as temporary beings in a moment of time. And though I still do believe that people are placed at different times in your life to serve different purposes, I still want to commit and invest in those relationships. They are there for a reason, at least at this point of time, even if you never know if it's short-lived.
4. You are ever-evolving
Your interests, hobbies, reactions to situations will continue to change as you grow older. My interests in cooking and baking only bloomed at the start of the pandemic, and now I can't see myself going without home-cooked food for more than a few days. Your reactions to situations will also change. I think I would have lost my mind if I didn't have things neatly lined up in the way I wanted when I was a kid. I needed to have my shoelaces tied a certain way. I wouldn't touch a vegetable with a ten foot pole. Now at 23, I constantly challenge myself to try out new produce, new vegetables. I love all my most hated veggies as a kid now.
Your fears will change too. As a kid, I had terrible insomnia. I would thrash in my sleep, overthinking everything, obsessively counting down the number of hours of sleep. I don't really know what kept me up so much at night. It was always a battle with some sort of monster. I go to bed easy now, knowing that even if I have a rough night, I will still get through the next day. Probably through the help of coffee. But I now know I'm much stronger than I think I am.