Becoming

What pushes/drives me? 
1. Being happy.
A lot of my decisions (fortunately or unfortunately) are based off of the happiness that I foresee I will reap from it, or also, to save me from unhappiness. Because, if I'm not going to be happy, why should I do it? Why do you pay a bill? Sure, it sucks now as you see your bank account diminishing with each transaction, but the mounting debt later on will definitely cause further unhappiness.

2. Hanging with friends. 
Being around friends is always a good respite from the stresses of the world. Friends give you good/bad advice, so much sadness/laughter but ultimately brings you back down to earth. Sometimes you don't even have to be talking about anything relevant to your problems (in fact, the further away from that topic the better), yet a simple hang out can make you feel recharged, ready to take on another day.

3. Making others happy / Getting recognition. 
I enjoy customer service. I thrive in making another person's day slighter better. While I definitely have my bad days, most days I strive to be nice and make someone else happy. This could be said in my daily life, at work, at dance etc. Sure, you'll never please everyone, but it'll be good to at least try. And while we go about with our life's roles (at work, at home, in your social circle etc.), sometimes it's really good to have someone recognise your efforts while you're at it.

What pains me? 
1. Regret
It could be as simple as regretting to cop the Balenciaga bag when it was on a steep discount, or as big as regretting to opt to go to Polytechnic instead of Junior College when I had the chance. Either way, both makes me think long and hard and ponder about my decision(s) in days/months/years to come. All a very unwelcoming experience.

Now as I'm penning down my thoughts, I seem to have come to realise that perhaps the only thing that pains me is Regret. Not because nothing much pains me, but rather, it seems that every sadness and disappointment I face all boils down to regret. If you don't understand what I'm saying, get this; Of course, losing someone I love pains me, but everyone dies, and the thing you're left with at the end of the day is "I regret not spending more time with him/her". So much regret, so much feels~

The reason for today's post gives 100% credit to Michelle Obama's book "Becoming". I never thought I would take interest in reading another person's biography but I did, and I do not regret doing so. The 2 questions above simply came from Michelle's recollection of an entry in her journal about Barack Obama while going through a quarter-life-crisis: "If there were not a man in my life constantly questioning me about what drives me and what pains me, would I be doing it on my own?". And that's when I realised I've never thought about such confounding questions before and that I should tackle it today.

This is good exercise. And I do believe my thoughts above encompasses the thoughts and is a paradigm of "today's youth". I do not deny that I am generalising, because after all, if everyone thought the same and had the same values, we would all be doing the same jobs, living the same lives and driving towards the same goal, which is totally untrue to say the least. However, it is not wrong to say that many of us are driven by happiness and fulfilment, which can often be mistaken as "entitlement" and could give an insight to our apparent "job-hopping" trend. The world views this as silliness, but I think of it as a smart move. We don't want a bunch of dejected and highly-stressed kids leading the economy do we?

And so, before I digress too much or stray too far with my thoughts, I shall end my post here but not before I highly encourage everyone reading this to delve into this 2 questions. Have a nice day!