For the past five years, I've been writing in a journal. You might say, "you mean a diary with all your deepest darkest thoughts?" Yes, that’s basically what it is. Diary, journal whatever you call it, it's a way that has allowed me to record my memories, feelings and thoughts. It's really neat being able to read back on my last year self and even my fifteen-year-old self and see how much I've changed yet stayed the same over the past years. From keeping a journal, I got to find out the things I'm most interested in and care about even when I don't really admit it to myself or recognize it. From my perspective, your high school and university career is when you change the most, but you don't really notice how much you have without taking a step back.
I was never a strong writer growing up, but I found writing a great way to record my thoughts. I liked to keep to myself and never really shared a lot of my thoughts to anyone. Writing was an outlet that I turned to when I wanted to freely express myself and reflect on things.
Over the years I've observed a couple things:
Even if you don't realize it, you live life with a pretty basic schedule. It probably consists of the same priorities as any other student: school, work, and extracurricular activities. With this, I quickly realized that I was a pretty anal person. I always prepared myself and planned for the things that would come next. I lived life on a pretty regular schedule. I always kept myself busy with school, work or extracurricular activities. With this on constant rotation, I always knew that I had something that I needed to do.
At a young age, you do really fucking stupid things. When you think about it, high school was a time to experiment and try new things. This was your first exposure to so much freedom and also so many new opportunities. Some people indulge their curiosity into the right things while others made some dangerous and questionable decisions. These can either be things related to your schoolwork, career, social outings and relationships (this especially). Reading on my past entries, I've had my fair share. I think that high school was really a time to learn from your mistakes. And sometimes this means having to experience it twice or even a couple times to realize it.
To continue on with my last point, this is the time to be curious. This is the time to experience all the things you ever wanted to do. This is the time to take chances and risks. This is the time to push your limits and step out of the comfort zone. Imagine saying yes to every opportunity you were faced. You don't want to be that person 30 years from now regretting all the decisions you didn't make; contemplating on how life would be if you just said yes to that one opportunity you had years ago.
As you grow up you become more of who you are. This is pretty self-explanatory. I never really understood why people didn't know what they wanted to do when they grew up. Even if it's not a specific career, you still know what you want out of your life and the things you want to be proud of. Over the past years, I have seen myself grow in the areas I had the most interest and passion in. I think it's better to capitalize on your greatest strength and really leverage that instead of always focusing on your weaknesses. No one is perfect. You can't be good at everything. There's always something special about an individual, it's not everything that makes them special.
You learn who your real friends are. In general, you learn who actually matters and who does not. You learn which people genuinely care and who are just there for the good times. Growing up, I was a total tomboy and even now I still have more guy friends than girls. I always just figured it was because girls are just too complicated and they complain too much about everything (which is true), but I guess it’s also because I never really had girlfriends who shared similar interests and motivations to be best friends with. Don’t get me wrong, I have close girlfriends but our relationship is quite abnormal.
After high school, I really learned that
friendship is a two-way street. If both parties don’t put an effort in the relationship it won’t work out. You slowly realize who are your friends solely because of the convenience and who are your real friends. A lot of people lose touch with their high school friends after high school, but I’m glad to say that I still have close relationships with mine.
I still don't really know what I want to do with my life. I mean I have an idea about what I want to do but I still don't know how it would look like specifically. The future is a scary thing and you can never really plan it. Although there's no clear route, you can always pave it for yourself. I always had a love for fashion and style but I also had a really negative perception of it as a career growing up. Alike to most of us in society, I thought that people who chose to pursue a degree in the arts would graduate with no job and not a very prosperous future. Reflecting back on it, I had a very stereotypical view of the industry. I thought that not many people really made it big in the fashion industry and not many people have the interest in helping you progress in it as a career either. That's why I chose to study commerce and explore my interest in that. However, I still couldn't get myself to completely scratch that career path away. After researching the industry some more, I learn that there are a lot more opportunities than I thought, especially on the business side of things. Although I still do not know what I specifically want to do, I'm happy to know that my opportunities are not limited.
Nordstrom Moto Jacket | Talula Slip Dress | TopShop Boots
Labels: Fashion, Life
