Reflections are best done every 10 years

I went home during the holidays and as I was rummaging through my closet in my room (or more accurately, navigating through the precariously stacked boxes in the converted storage room), I came across a couple of journals.

I flipped one open dated 2006.

It took me back to 10 years ago, when I was 14. After reading a couple of pages, I cringed and soldiered on; my main accomplishment for the day was making it through one journal.

Because I came across such a gem, this year’s reflections will be a little different. Rather than reminiscing on last year, I’ll be doing reminiscing on the past decade, because why not embrace high delta growth?

I was quite embarrassing back then, brace yourselves.

10 Things I Learned in the Past 10 years:

1. Humans are really resilient beings. Change is possible. 360 transformations take time, but you’ll be thankful that you’ve worked hard and invested in yourself. Even if that took many many iterations to become a better person, like 10 years. 3650 days*. 87600 hours. Look, I could’ve even become a master at something.
2. I will always like someone. I can not tell you how many pages and pages of black, blue and pink ink were filled with sentences going on and on about who was cute and play by play of what they did in my classes. Thankfully, I’ve stopped being a narrator of others’ actions and have taken actions for myself. And also that now there’s so much more substance, who cares if they have skater hair or not?
3. Human memory is quite faulty. I’ve taken a memory class before and was aware of things like flashbulb and false memories. I was still surprised at how much I forgot over time. In middle school, I thought I didn’t have close friends. I always thought I didn’t get a boyfriend until college. Apparently, I treated a couple of friends to movies on my birthday and had a boyfriend of 3 days. Who knew.
4. Trust in friendships is crucial. According to what I wrote, I was quite the gossiper and two friends conspired together to teach me a lesson by pretending they fought and seeing if I would tell each of them what the other said. Feel free to infer what happened based on the existence of this story. My friendships were also inconsistent, one day I would be “really really good friends” with someone and the next day I would be “I can’t trust her and we’re not talking anymore.” Now the friends I surround myself are much more stable and nourishing.
5. Love is more than a feeling. I kept on writing I LOVE [insert name] even though I barely had any communication with him whatsoever, and we were obviously not dating / seeing / talking to each other at all. I think love can be one-sided, but looking back, it seems crazy that I “loved” this person when we had no communication and exchanges of respect and openness. Love is a verb, not just a feeling. It’s commitment (and he moved to Florida a couple of days after I wrote that entry).
6. Human interactions are fundamental. All my entries were either about family, friends, or other people. Granted, most of the entries were about troubles concerning them but still, human relationships has always been a constant part of my life. We live in a social world, interacting and connecting with others. And that’s why emotional intelligence and social skills are so important.
7. When you have no purpose, your day depends on others. I didn’t really have a specific thing I wanted to achieve (other than getting straight A’s, but that was more of a requirement than a choice). There was no internal compass or vision or direction that I wanted my life to go, so I became very reactive instead of proactive. External things outside my control, like one person’s action or a thing that happened, could make or break my day. What a rollercoaster.
8. Nerdiness is cool. I was part of Mathcounts, and would hide the fact that I was in it, because I didn’t want to seem geeky. The truth is, math counts. Literally and figuratively. I even had to take 3 stat classes for a psychology major (I obviously didn’t plan that out very well). The real world applause your brain power and quantitative skills. Smartness is attractive.
9. Collect moments, and some things. The original quote was collect moments, not things. However, rereading the birthday cards and letters brought me to that previous time and a flood of memories. Like scents, those past experiences become so vivid, and being able to re-savor moments shared with others and understand their perspectives of you at that time is invaluable.
10. Keep a journal. I’ve stopped writing about my emotions in high school and college. Only recently, I’ve started to write down thoughts and ideas, and tidbits of feelings here and there. I wonder if there’s less emotions because I’ve become less emotional or I’ve become more in control of emotions in my adult life. As I become more self-aware, I want to document my learnings and discoveries. I wonder what my future self will think of me, and what things future me would deem as irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. I’m curious and can’t wait to find out…in 10 years.

*p.s. if you noticed that the number was a bit off (didn’t take into account leap years, and perhaps a whole bunch of other stuff), come do math problems with me.