To the days I felt lost

It's like finishing a 800m track, I'm at the finishing line, neither top runners nor the last. 

The slight happiness for completing the course, I felt proud of myself, but anxiety strike as soon as I remember that I'll be leaving this track to somewhere unknown...

A little bit of background

The one con of schooling system (in my opinion) is that, I am placed into this track, and I got so used to this one direction. Ever since primary school, participating in competitions, scoring in exams, be discipline, earn higher positions, and so on filled up my school life and created who I am today. 

I would say, my primary and secondary schools aren't top-tiered school. Hence being the top student there doesn't boost much of my confidence, plus I never did well in off-campus competitions. Which I come to terms with myself that I'm might be above average or maybe average, since I'm not at the top (from my perspective). 

The idea lead me to think of university as a bigger place, more competitive and a place for me to maximize my growth. FYI, I've always wanted to be better and not to settle down with who I am. People say life is like a marathon, but to me it's like a series of track and field events. 

The "Buzz" Before the "Storm" 

To give a better view of the story, my 2022 is considered the last 200m of the 800m. I only have the finishing line in mind, I have no idea which event is next. 

I finish off this 200m going all out, telling myself "it's the finishing line, I'm there, I'm almost there." without knowing why but most probably just for a self satisfaction and to have a nice wrap up of my youth. 

A quick overview of how my 2022 had been: 

I walked out of my one-year plus relationship, lost myself and took quite some time to find myself again while building the better me. Not long after, I was assigned a huge responsibility to organize a school event. My life got super hectic, it was stressful especially when I'm lack of experience but fortunately I manage to strive for it. 

For the few months, I started working on the event and my final year project as soon as I got up from bed around 9am, usually ends midnight. I give up almost all of my leisure time, only reserving bite-size time for family, friends and my love. "When life gives you lemon, make lemonade" had perfectly describe my life in that few months.  And yes, my sugar made an appearance and entered my life. 

I don't particularly enjoy lemonade, but it was bearable with the bite-sized quality time spent with my loved ones. Time flies, the event and my final year project don't go as smooth as I expected, but they aren't too bad from my expectations. And in just a blink, I'm in Cyberjaya office logging in for my first internship. 

The internship is a blessing to me. Healthy working culture, friendly colleagues, tasks given aren't too challenging (to me), the flexibility and trust given had made me actually enjoying my days working. As grateful as I felt with the internship, I'm even blessed with being offered the full-time position in the company, but I'll be starting on March 2023. 

The Anxiety

Thanks to the years of having countless opportunities (also myself for not accepting them), multiple roles and responsibilities, sometimes even 3 roles at the same time. I can proudly say that I'm well-trained for multitasking and working under pressure. Hence to be honest, I experienced almost to zero anxiety throughout the younger days. 

But

I did not pass the anxiety of adulting. 

As mentioned, the year did not turn out as good as I expected. Partially due to my high expectations, and there was also some time for self review. Turns out I'm slightly disappointed with my own performance, I feel like I did not reach the height that I wanted to. However, since I have been living everyday to my best and I know what I did were the best of what I'm capable of doing at that time, I leave zero regrets. 

Anxiety started to grow when I stare into my own performance review, I am well aware that I may not be up to par of a professional graphic designer, my works aren't strong. 

Jack of all trades, master of none. 

My internship wasn't fully related to what I have been studying. Although I did well, but somehow imposter syndrome did creep in. The feeling went off when I got offered the full time job, only anxiety left. 

During my internship, as usual and as expected, I was preparing for adulting. I started learning more about economy and finances, to name a few that I've been looking into, cost of living, investment, housing, cars, taxation, careers, business, laws and so on. And that's where I learn that fintech companies are starting to lay off staffs due to budget issues. 

Random thoughts went through my mind as I have yet to get into the full time job as it is scheduled to start in March. To me, it has been a habit to think from every angle, every possibilities so that I prepared myself with the best case and worst case scenario. It doesn't seems to be bad until this time it brought me anxiety. 

Yes, anxiety as I just finished the 800m not too good nor bad.
Yes, I lose some confidence in myself. 
Yes, anxiety is here with me while waiting the days to pass. 

Upon ending the internship, I had the vision of being productive and do things that I wanted to do prior to March. My December break was sufficient to cool down, I get to rest and relax. However, little did I realized that I had a burnout that is pending recovery since months ago. 

As I realized the spendings of going out to places, normal rates for living in Kuala Lumpur is still somehow stressful if you don't manage your finances well. This brought me to think about my spending habits, my earnings, and my ideal lifestyle. 

Yes, more anxiety because of the expectations I have for myself.  

Troubleshooting 

As soon as I felt the growing anxiety, I did not know the reason at first and neither know how should I handle it. It was until I put myself in front of my laptop, looking back into some major issues, feelings and performances for the past few years. I looked back and wrote my past, then look into what I feel and what do I actually want. 

Writing does help me organize my thoughts as I will be able to craft out and point out what happened in words, as well as paragraphs that make sense. "If you can define the problem, you are half way solving them", they said. Well, it does help me and so this is why you get to read this piece. 

I decided to talk it out a bit by a bit via Instagram stories, and grateful to my friends that replied me and woke me up. "You don't have to rush", "you're doing well", "Take your time to rest", "just a few months, you'll be fine". Some of them does comfort me, although I don't think I was looking for comfort but I guess I was being too harsh on myself.  

Still, I'm just a fresh grad. They said. 

Now that I wrote this out, I felt much relieve and lesser anxiousness. Still do worried about my future but worst come to worst, I shall be fine. There are still a lot of things I wanted to do, and I still have high expectation of myself. 

And

I'll accept myself for doing nothing, at the same time I'll take more action instead of just sitting, thinking and getting nervous all in my head.

I've always believe that the more you procrastinate, the more work you will pile up. So dealing with procrastination is super easy - stop thinking, start doing.

I'm slowly getting a grip of myself again. 

The 800m is now completed, maybe some jogging for now, until I settle down for a half marathon soon. 

Read about the summary and learnings here:
https://yunn0510writes.blogspot.com/2023/02/to-days-i-felt-lost-summary-and.html