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I am Perfect and I Love It Too
I am perfect for being myself.
When I posted about being imperfect, my husband’s comment was this “It is great, but I think you should also do a blog post about being perfect.”
I cocked my head towards him, dismissing his remarks, simply believing it would not make sense to do that. First, I thought it would be easier than admitting about my own imperfection. Second, it would be quite obvious, wouldn’t it? Especially given that I actually have some narcissistic tendencies.
But then, as I gave it more thoughts, I realized that it’s actually much harder. Much much harder.
Why? Partially because I am afraid that people would think I’m bragging, or even worse, delusional. In my native land, we were thought to be modest. There was a saying we should behave like good rice crops. The more rice you have, the lower you bowed (a.k.a. keep your head down and be humble). Or this proverb: The empty cans sound the loudest. Only the stupid talks loudly and brag about themselves. So in a way it felt like it’s more forbidden to actually say good things about yourself.
Would this actually make you feel like you’re inadequate? I’m starting to feel like that, even though I know l shouldn’t.
Deep inside, I do believe we are all perfect beings. Perfectly perfect in our own imperfections. Every traits we have is a blessing, and every perfection has its imperfections (which made it perfect). So why is it easier to write about your imperfection but I felt like I needed the permission to say things I am perfect in? Shouldn’t be like that, should it?
With that in mind, I took a deep breath, be brave, and share my perfections here. I am owning up to it as a way for me to be thankful for it. I will try not to give excuses for my perfection, just admitting and accepting it as they are. I really hope it will inspire you to admit your own perfection.
- I am smart. My IQ is somewhat above average (last time when I got it tested). I’m your typical nerd who’d rather solve puzzles, read, or do a math homework rather than playing balls outdoor. PS: my absolute favorite subject in school is math
. - I am creative and I am always overflowing with ideas. When I couldn’t do a project it’s not because I’m running out of ideas, but it’s because I’m already bored with it.
- I am the sunshine type. I inspire people around me.
- I am open minded. I tend to accept people as they are (my imperfection is: only if they also except me for who I am).
- I can eat whatever I want and I have never had a problem with my weight. That being said, I do make an conscious choice to eat healthy things and I am mostly vegetarian.
- I am healthy and I do sports regularly, between 2 – 4 times a week.
- I am easily inspired and touched whenever I heard a story about people who went after their dreams. Their stories always make my day.
- It takes so little to make me smile when I’m down. A promise of cake, a warm hug, a smile, or simply a “you go girl!” encouragement.
- I have a great taste in food, design, and fashion.
- I dare to follow my bliss. Be it being a writer, a freelancer, or doing my own projects. Even if sometimes my bliss confused me.
- I’m a good gamer and could earn myself a high score in sudoku, minesweeper, killing several guards, or a racing game.
- I am confident in how I look and how I carry myself around people.
- I am easy going when it comes to making friends.
- I am adventurous and I would probably try everything at least once, especially if you could provide a good reason for me to do so.
- When I know what I want, I am always going for it. Yeah, I got rejections and failures too but it’s better than regret!
- I can drive and park as good as any other people other there. (I think driving skills should not be divided by gender!)
- I love myself truly and I am awesome like that! I am a believer of you should love yourself first before you could have anyone loves you.
- I am funny (sometimes) and I am easily amused like a little child (yes, I still laugh out loud at fart jokes)
- I don’t really grow up at heart. I love being a child, keeping my enthusiasm in life, in learning new things, and could easily forget the pain of yesterday and move on.
- I could easily see the good in everyone.
- I have no sleeping problems. (Yes, maybe sometimes, but 99% of the time I’m an easy sleeper).
There’s my list. I promised myself I’m going to make it at least as long as my imperfection list. I hope you will feel perfect too when you do the list! What are your perfections?
I am Imperfect and I Love It
My feeble attempt at juggling
Sure, not always. (But it’s alright).
This is kind of a personal post, inspired by a blog post on Positively Positive about Giving Yourself Permission to be Imperfect. It’s one of those posts that wakes me up, thinking I might be trying too hard to create a perfect version of me. It made me feel slightly pretentious, and it’s tiring when in the end, you felt like you’re constantly looking for approvals.
So, I really like the idea of taking off my mask and embrace my faults (even though it scared me to do it). Not judging, not trying to be better, just embracing it and loving it for what it is. Because believe me, despite your imperfections, you would have perfections in other parts of your life, so it’s alright. Things balanced themselves. And it’s really alright to have them.
So, here’s my “dirt”:
- I procrastinate. I planned to write this post since Monday and only got around to doing it on Thursday.
- I want people to think I’m smart. Which leads me to being afraid of failures or trying out things that might look like it’s stupid.
- I’m a slob. I don’t like cleaning up.
- I love fried foods. Especially fries and banana fritters. My Achilles heel.
- If someone hurt me, I would plot a vicious revenge before I could forgive them.
- I could fall into the same trap twice (or more).
- I’m scatter brained. I love to do many things but sometimes it feels like I can’t focus long enough to finish one thing.
- I’m impatient when it comes to things I wanted.
- I over-think and over-plan.
- I love shopping. Mostly shoes and makeup, sometimes over spending.
- I need extra effort to get up and do sports. Oh yes, I do yoga and running, but usually it started out from a grumpy me. The mood changes, but still!
- I don’t like stupid people. Which is why it’s best for the world that I’m not a teacher.
- I still haven’t got my life figured out. I know I am doing the things that I love, but there are days when everything seemed like it’s going wrong.
- There are days where I feel like a failure and just want to hide under my covers.
- I keep score. Instead of forgetting and start new.
- I’m still struggling to be authentic.
- I can’t control my emotions, and I cry when I’m angry (and hungry).
- I hate it when people could see my weaknesses.
There’s probably more to it than what I wrote here, but that’s what I could come up with for now. It’s a good therapy for me. To realize all of these, and just be okay with it. I am working on making some things better, of course. But some things are just better be embraced instead of fighting it off.
Please do post some comments or share your dirt! (Yes, partly for egoistic reasons so I won’t feel so lonely doing this 
).
I promise, my next post would be something more useful, possibly something about Berlin 
.
Focusing on the Likes – The Lesson from Facebook
One of the things I heard often from inspirational websites are about focusing on the positives. Doing more of the things you actually like to do and then things will be great.
But how true is that? Even though in general I am a believer, there are days when my logical brain will just go all skeptical on me. Is there any proof?
I personally believe that generally, if you do this, you will see the difference. You will find that your life started changing towards the way you wanted it to be. That is as long as you actually take action and not just wishing things would change.
For me, surprisingly, Facebook is one of the places where I could see the change. I happen to have quite a lot of friends there. Not because I am popular, but just because as an Indonesian you kind of fell into the habit of adding all your classmates since your first grade. Since there are 50 pupils in a class, and you kind of get different classmates every year, in the end it just adds up. The problem was, as I realized now, some I didn’t really remember (thus I didn’t really care about what’s going on in their life). Some I barely talked to in school, and they never talk to me now. Even worse, some kept tagging me in posts I truly have zero interest on (those got the boots, eventually). But lately, I felt that Facebook’s algorithm had been quite smart. It puts someone’s post on your feed based on your interactions with them. If you ‘like’ or comment a lot on what they do, it will show up more on your wall.
Some of you who knows me well would also now that sometimes I can’t keep my mouth shut (or in this instance, my fingers from typing), and I would just say what I think. I don’t say it’s a bad thing, because I do believe you have to take a stand with what you believe in. But the question is: if you keep on interacting with some person, criticizing them or posting topics you are against of, instead of just ignore and move on, what will happen? Yep, Facebook will keep on posting more about them. Possibly even recommending links relating to that topic. Been there, done that.
So instead, lately I find it better to focus on giving the love to things you care about. If the people you like didn’t post enough stuff (because real people have real things to do, maybe ) Perhaps even follow and like some pages on Facebook that you’d find interesting. Some silly ones that made you laugh, some design magazines, or some food blogs. Eventually I realized the posts from people I don’t interact starts disappearing from my page (but watch out, sometimes it also hides posts from people whom you actually cared about, just because you haven’t liked their post in a while).
This, I can really see the result, albeit by a ‘simple’ Facebook algorithm . Focusing on the things you love works in your favor. Enough reason for me to keep feeding my energy towards the things I love.
One little change, for a start, and it will grow towards bigger changes. One little thing you can do will enable you to do bigger things you didn’t think was possible for you.
PS: Just in case you’re wondering, I’m still not very good at this. Especially when the Berlin days started to get dark and dreary like now. And this is precisely why I wanted to write the post, as a self reminder .
Energy. #Trust30
Energy by Julia E
“The world belongs to the energetic.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
It’s easy to blame our failure to meet our goals or to live our dream lives on a lack of energy, and we don’t always stop to think about the quality of energy in our lives. Yet we can choose to create and manage our own energy flow.
Think of an instance when you’ve been so involved in an activity that you’ve lost track of time, and then identity the passions and energies you were feeding. Who was there with you? What were you doing? What will you do to make time for moments like that one more often?
(Author: Julia E)
I’ve always loved travelling with hubs, exploring new places, trying out the local cuisine, and being able to just live in the moment, not worrying about anything. We could walk for hours, taking a different turn, trying out a new cafe we thought was interesting.
It is something about being in a new place that excited me. I love the sensation of having a new experience, getting into things I’ve never done before, seeing things I’ve never seen. I’m not talking of the daredevil things, or some great buildings or canyons. For me, it was simple things like finding a new corner street with lots of interesting cafes, a park I’ve never been to, or a new Zara store.
As for work, I love the feeling I get when starting a new project. With the writing projects, it means all those possible plots to explore, new characters traits, new villains. With the design projects, it means all those new color, new theme, and new ways of doing things.
It’s not easy when you felt stuck in a project that takes too long. I procrastinated. It definitely made it worse. I think it’s time for me to go back to the feeling I had when starting it, remind myself why I was so passionate about it. I know the feeling when I did something good would be much more exhilarating than starting a new project. I aim for that.