Blog 30: Advise to Younger Self

I have done many things in my life, many of them had a good turnout and many of them ended up as mistakes. It would be a huge lie if I were to say that I never regretted any of my doings. There are a lot of things that I do regret back to when I was young -- back to my old self two or three years ago. I wish that I could have the chance to do all of them all over again or if I had the chance to give myself, back then, some piece of advice. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work that way. But if the world did work that way, I would have tons of advices to say to my old self...

1. Outspoken and Outgoing

• I would advise myself to be more outspoken and outgoing instead of keeping everything to myself. Maybe then, other people who saw this weakness of mine wouldn’t have taken advantage of my introverted self as well as stepped on me.

2. Take Every Opportunities

• I would tell myself to take every opportunities given to me, to enter every opened doors without any hesitation or without being afraid. There were times when I wanted to do something, when I wanted to join a club, when I wanted to join a sport, or whatever just for the heck of it, but I ended up not doing so because I was scared of what would happen if I ended up not liking the club or the sport.

3. Be an Individual

• Looking back two to three years ago, I didn’t want to stand out among my peers because I was afraid and was too concerned of what other people would think of me, especially my fellow peers. I always thought to myself that being different, setting yourself apart from the crowd would only mean that no one would like you. I believed that if you didn’t follow “what’s in” or if you aren’t flowing in the current “trend”, people wouldn’t accept you. But obviously that’s not the case because if you always follow other people, you are doomed to never finding yourself -- never finding who you really are. You will end up losing that sense of individuality within you; you are losing what makes you the person you really are and that’s never a good thing.

4. Keep an Open-Mind, Be Friends with EVERYONE

• Back then, I wasn’t really too sure about making friends outside my comfort zone. I didn’t really know how to act towards those who are not in my circle of friends or if they were different from me. There was a time when I did judge a person by how they looked without getting the chance to know them personally. I was ashamed of such a thing because they ended up being one of the best people I’ve met, they became a huge part of my life as well as being one of my best friends. I would advise my younger self to keep an open-mind and basically befriend everyone without having the urge to judge a person without having the chance to learn who they really are.

5. Do What Makes You Happy

• I’ve always been a people pleaser. I wanted to please people all the time, not wanting them to be disappointed at me that I always ended up doing what they wanted me to do instead of what I wanted to do. I would tell my younger self to stop trying to please every single person because at the end, all the decisions that you make in life will affect you the most. So, always follow what you want to do without being limited by other people just because you wanted to make them happy...