Life experiences

When I started this journey last November - it was about realizing that life was short. That I should not let life and opportunities pass me by. I realized that you should live life by the minute, live in the present, worry about things under your control.

I was unhappy before because I was living within other people's definitions.

I couldn't make a decision until a gun was pointed at me - be it time constraints, health constraints, career constraints, financial constraints. I let life dictate to me. I was happy with other people telling me what to do. The difference between being a kid and growing up is the acceptance and taking responsibility over your decisions.

I've always been good at not trying and when I fail, I'd blame other people. It was a good fall back and it protected me from getting hurt operating in that model.

Anyway, I said I changed last year when it came to decisions about making my own food or working out or smoking. Then I decided to take my career into my own hands and struggled with the same concept - that now I make my own decisions and the result of it is directly my responsibility. I still struggle with that everyday and I know in the big picture, it is rewarding and amazing to say, hey, I was responsible for that. Even through the failures, if you persevere you'll be successful.

The one thing I never talked about in my blog was falling in love. I had lived my whole life not knowing what makes me happy and being miserable about it and blaming other factors. When I found out that I could take control of my life, I felt that a lot of people were proud of me and were attracted to the new Thu. Inside though, I still felt fat and insecure about not knowing a lot of things. See there's all these things I didn't know how to do as a result of me losing weight. Like buy new clothes. I used to HATE shopping because I had to go to the plus size section where everything is ugly. But now suddenly I'm fitting into size 6 jeans and tank tops and really liking it. Now, I didn't know what to wear and how to put on makeup. I felt insecure that I'm a grown woman who didn't know the basics of being a girl, much less a woman.

I can't believe how things fall into place, when you just let go and be true to yourself and do what makes you happy. Gawd, every movie, everything your parents tell you, every book you read, it says the same. But I didn't know until I experienced it. It's like, when you let go and just be true to yourself, thats when all these opportunities come by.

Falling in love was the last thing missing in my life while I got the other parts of my life. It was exhilarating, it gave me a new source of energy and meaning in life. It was the missing equation of balance and living a fulfilling life.

Well, it is if I let the experiences play out. My downfall and the doom of my relationship is when I was super scared and stopped being true to myself. I lost focus of my original goals of being healthy, of taking my career into my own hands, of living everyday - and it slowly in time got replaced by the same insecurities and the same need for someone else to define what I should do or what is the prescribed method of doing something. As soon I started being selfish and want to protect myself from taking responsibility and finding other things to blame, thats when things started breaking down.

What I learned from the past year was that I was on the right track of coming to a realization of being true to what makes me happy and just doing it and accepting the consequences. Once you start hedging your bets and not being true to yourself, you set yourself up for failure.

Hey, whats important is that I'm alive and I'm healthy and I live to talk about my past year and my life. I've learned, the hard way, what happens when you don't. Even if it means carving your own path and not being able to reach for old experiences. I remember loving this poem in Highschool and graduating University. I do hope I keep at it, remind myself and stay true to myself and take responsibility and control of my life.

Thank you for all the support and for believing in me when I didn't believe in myself.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost