Wow, September was so intense! Actually, make that August and September. Today being the first weekday of October, it feels to me like I am finally taking a breather from everything that happened in the past 2 months!
So what happened in the past weeks? Studying. Studying and teaching. Way too much of that. As you may or may not know, apart from making sure my jewellery line doesn’t die and fizzle into nothingness, I teach private lessons to high school Chemistry students (or, students in junior college in Singapore).
And it so turns out that their final-year exams happen this week, which means everyone has been uber stressed, and strategies were needed to help us all come out better and survive this. And all of that in turn meant that I had to come up with personalised strategies for all of my individual kids, because they are all from various schools, which teach various topics, and have different standards and expectations. In addition to that, my kids have attained different levels in terms of their understanding of the subject and they each have their own methods of learning.
I won’t bore you with more teaching stuff, so let’s talk about the studying stuff. My studying stuff. I’m taking a real estate exam at the end of October, and so it’s been crazy on my end as well, trying my best to squeeze in some time to learn all the content that the real estate course I attended did not teach. And it’s a whole lot of content, like land law, local government policies and calculations related to home loans and mortgages.
I suppose I’m on track with regards to my revision schedule, and now that I no longer have classes with my students (I mean, who has classes after exams?) till about mid-November, I have all the time in the world to really focus on my own exam. And after doing a bit of reflection this afternoon, I realised I’ve recently learnt quite a bit about myself.
But out of all that, here’s a life tip, from me to you:
It’s very important to cut off negative people in your life, people who hold you down, people who just have this aura that somehow pulls you to their level and you don’t understand how it happens. I don’t mean people who suffer from depression, mind you. People who have depression cannot control their emotions, and they are people who want to feel better, and who want life to be better, and who would, if they could, pick joy and lightness over sadness any day.
Give yourself the permission to soar.
By negative people, I mean those who just somehow cannot see the positive in things or situations they are in, and they try to influence you to think and feel the same, so that they will snuggle in the comfort of knowing that they’re not alone in their self-afflicted suffering. Pessimists, if you will, but these people are worse.
Sometimes, they know what they’re doing but sometimes it lies in their subconsciousness and they aren’t aware of it. And even if you try to make them see otherwise, that they can change their lives if they just focused on what needs to be done instead of wallowing in how unfair life is, it doesn’t work.
So, to protect yourself and to give yourself the permission to grow, cut them off. You can’t help them because they don’t want to be helped. So, help yourself. Cut them off and make space for the other people who will add value to your life (and to whom you can add value), and who genuinely want to see you grow and succeed regardless of whatever is happening in their own lives.
Give yourself the permission to fly,
Roxanne