12 Things I Wish People Had Reminded Me While Growing Up

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Here are some thoughts I wished people around reminded me more whilst growing up, but it’s never too late to realize right?

1. Fear can keep you up all night, but faith makes a fine pillow.

Trusting God isn’t never the easiest thing to do, especially when you feel like your world’s crumbling down. Fear is a very mortal thing, but trust in your faith and don’t be anxious! This peace will guard your heart and mind.

2. Alcohol turns your problems….into rock songs only for the night.

I read this somewhere, but it’s just so applicable unto all our avenues of frustration. An ice cream tub and a spoon can orchestrate a full symphony of a lullaby (but really it’s just the carbs dulling you to sleep) or just plain running away from everything. We always seek an escape, but it all comes back to haunt you the next morning. Therapeutic? Yes. Solves your problems? No.

3. But it’s okay to go crazy, for a while.

It’s perfectly fine to go crazy once in a while, take a spontaneous trip, detour for retail therapy or have a drop too much (I’d like to think that I’m more spontaneous than I actually am). Buy a pair of gorgeous sandals with your last 30 bucks of your bank account, living on the edge sometimes helps you to cherish the grass on the other side. Sometimes we need to stop thinking and start doing, taking a risk doesn’t always mean going crazy. Young and volatile, take chance on your youth to take risks before you grow up too fast. Even if it leads you off the well-worn path, you fall, learn and plunge back up stronger.

4. When the lemon’s drained, it’s drained.

In the meantime, enjoy your lemonade aka fruit of labour. Leslie Grimutter’s words “Sometimes imagination pounces; mostly it sleeps soundly in the corner, purring” really speaks to me. Inspiration doesn’t always come at the right times, so deal with it. Go ahead with life, and it’ll hit you right back up when it’s ready.

5. Your self worth is not on a bell curve.

Not trying to go on board the whole college lingo on bell curves and all, but your self worth is really not relative to someone else’s’ personal achievements or life stories…or how they look. I’ve always been a bit hard up in terms on academia performance but I guess certain epiphanies made me realize how many other aspects of life are so, so much more important. Experience isn’t a checklist, so why bother comparing? Your life isn’t a bell curve graded elective module in college.

6. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Have you ever felt like you were a watch someone’s wearing but they forgot to wind? It’s fine to wallow up in self-pity for a while, but you have to get to a point where you stop feeling so sorry or vulnerable; and start living for yourself. Express yourself, wind yourself up and get heard, not hurt. Tick tock.

7. There’s beauty in the breakdown.

It’s okay to be afraid. It’s okay if you don’t want to take that leap of faith, even when someone coax you into it. Sometimes your intuition speaks louder than words, God will give you a peace of mind if He thinks it’s the right thing for you.

8. Water-cooler conversations are the best.

Not in the office gossip way, but putting the focus on the small talk. Say good morning to the person who kindly puts her arm out as you dash in last minute into the peak hour lift or smile at another who opens the gate for you. You’d surprised on how much you can learn or gather from a short exchange. Just two Saturdays ago, a Chinese businessman approached me towards the bend of Orange grove road saying how he was lost finding Shangri-la. I mentioned I was heading to the same destination, and he kindly offered to shelter me with his umbrella as it was raining and starting talking about how the olden days of Singapore were so different from the modern city it has now become. Turns out that he’s from Shenzhen, and he bought a serviced apartment in Singapore but didn’t have the opportunity to drop by. It was a rather pleasant experience, albeit my not so fluent conversational mandarin getting him a little miffed here and there.

9. It’s the company that matters.

With the right company, even mundane grocery shopping becomes the most fun errand in the world (even though I really do adore shopping for groceries to begin with) Even simple errands like doing your dishes or cleaning up, it’s always better to do it with a loved one.

10. Embrace your inner child.

It’s so ironical that we wish to grow up faster when we were younger, but wish for our carefree younger times when we get older. We grow up tainted with so much inner inhibitions; I think we all spend half our lives thinking about what others think about us. Stop thinking so much – life will be a lot simpler that way.

11. Don’t give up on traveling.

If you’re too young or you can’t afford to travel, you can still travel! There is always that element of magic in the wanderlust that doesn’t discriminate, be it in a travel blog or a National Geographic archive. I don’t really have the fortune of traveling around so extensively so spontaneous photography trips aka home adventures are certainly a score. Your country may be small, but it must be large on culture!

12. We inherently believe in Love.

Theories on love and emotions are strewn around daily. It’s true, we love, get loved but we also fall out of love and get hurt. But eventually deep down, we still believe in true love and that it exist, because when we plunge back up, we start looking for it all over again.