My favourite thing about ending (end of the year, end of the quarter, end of the decade) is the opportunity to reflect and look back. As much as I am all for digitisation and having 90% of my life on my laptop, there's some real value in writing in a notebook. I love notebooks and scribbling my thoughts and plans in them. They're messy, but I love them.
Today, I went to look back at my notebook with tons of post-it notes. It's been a year of written notes. I often look back at things I've written and gain new insights or re-learn things I've forgotten. What a wonderful opportunity.
Perhaps the best thing that I am very grateful for is the words of encouragement that Future Lisa wrote to then-Present Lisa, which current-Present Lisa can learn from Past-Lisa. Basically, I write a lot of notes and letters to myself. All the orange tabs are words of encouragement when I need them. I'm only human, and I'm fallible. I'm most grateful for the kind words my head provides.
I have learnt to understand that in many people's heads, the voice inside is unkind. To me, I never really had to deal with that. And if the words start to be unkind, I tell my head to STFU and stop being lame with the unkind words. Such words have zero social utility, hence why waste the time and effort to be bothered with them? But that's just me and how I deal with the voice in my head.
Since my book is so messy, post-it notes help me to navigate my thoughts and organise them, somehow. There are random sketches, neat notes, messy notes and tiny reminders when I need some help. I'm so grateful to be documenting these little pieces of me in my notebook. It's my little time machine, and I can go back to the state in which I have written these notes.
I think one way I deal with negative experiences is to find lessons in them, write the lessons down and move on with life. Shit happens in my life, obviously. But I never really them them too seriously as in using them to define who I am today. Thus, when I have to think of really bad experiences, it's hard to do so. Because there's not much value in remembering them expect for the lessons learnt. Thus, if I learnt something, it's not a real bad experience, isn't it. I don't know if this is psychologically healthy, but eh, I like this way of living my life.
There is zero purpose in this post. I'm just thankful for Past-Lisa, writing all these notes down and I can go back to it anytime. It's like all the posts here, but in a more raw and messy form. Life is fantastic. I'm so grateful!
Love,
L