What I learn in 2023

Present + Patient

This is a summary of my 2023:

Okay, I know this sounds super funny and stupid, but there are so many interpretations that come out of it.

Interpretation 1: Esther is so unlucky in 2023. She broke up when she just graduated without a sense of direction in her life. When she finally almost settled down in her new life, she got fired, lived under money stress, and needed to start everything else again.

Interpretation 2: Esther is so lucky in 2023. She learned lots of important lessons and unlocked a lot of new abilities in life. She learned to love even more through heartbreak. She learned to build herself from 0 to 1 when she didn’t have anything. She learned to be patient with herself and accepted and enjoyed whatever life she was given by the universe.

Hehe, I know I know weirdo friends, Interpretation 2 is easier to say than done. But I want to tell you where all these inspirations come from, and what I keep practicing every day.

My 2023 summary map

Today, I want to share with you two brand new skills that I developed in 2023:

• Goodbye Control + Be Present

• Patience

Goodbye Control + Be Present

All of us are afraid of uncertainty, so we always try to make sure everything is in control in our lives.

However, there are not many things we can really control. On a bigger scale, we cannot control the world economy which made me lose my Meta return offer. On the medium scale, I cannot control if my boss wants to fire me. But even on the tiny scale about oursleves, we don’t even have much control. We can barely choose whom we fall in love with. We can learn how to manage our emotions better, we can not really choose to not feel sad when we lose our loved ones.

If we cannot control the future and have little control over ourselves, why don’t we set aside that sense of urge to grab and merely accept or even enjoy what we have?

For sure, this learning doesn’t come easy to me, and I’m still on my way through daily practice. I only start to learn after sitting with my emotions “10” years after my heartbreak. I have done so many things to work on it, therapy, yoga, meditation, exercise, work pray……except drugs, I have probably tried everything I can. But, I still cannot stop my feelings or having related thoughts even though I have already recognized it says much more about me than that specific relationship. Only when none of those fight, flights, and managing work, I recognize, “Damn…maybe….I am not in control of my emotions, and okay then. Nevermind.”

This is the same as me feeling so lost after losing my job (read Completely lost).

Drawings from Completely lost. I can barely control my brain hahaha

If I can barely control my brain, my emotions, my future, and my work……why try so hard to control it in the first place?

When I discard my responsibility to be in control, I can finally release my internal burden and stress that I keep adding to myself. That energy I preserve becomes appreciation for life and being present. I start to think about what I want to learn every day and feel so curious about how my future will turn out (Read Jobless & Single Life). Well….to the point that I find being single and jobless can be actually an amazing lifestyle lmao.

Drawing from Jobless & Single Life

I’m not God, so I’m not saying that I’m happy and now my life is all set. From time to time, I can still feel sad, lost, confused, and anxious. But every day is just another day of practice, and feeling okay when I don’t have control is definitely my lifelong practice. I’m learning how to rest in pain in the same way I rest in peace.

Patience

Ah…you ask me how do I learn patience? I don’t know, man and woman and they. I think the key is to be honest and earnest about the lessons that life is trying to teach you. I used to think I was an impatient person because I wanted to solve all the problems as fast as I could, or else I felt super anxious. But now, I will say I am quite of a patient person, and I’m still on the way. Learning patience gives me a lot of good things: kindness for myself, honesty for learning, and humor for difficult circumstances.

Patience gives me a lot of kindness for myself. After I lost my job, I was like: If I’m going to be jobless and have nothing to do every day. I might as well stay happy and healthy. So I started to exercise every day and feel like a happy puppy.

Drawing on Give me a scoop of kindness

Patience also gives me a lot of honesty in my learning. I don’t mind learning fast or slow but I want to walk in my timezone and be loyal to my own journey.

For me, love for learning means that even if all my exes took 1 month to move on, but it took me a year, I still want to take every step of the path. I want to learn loyally.

It means that even though everyone around my age has already worked for a few years, but I just start today and feel so confused. I still learn happily.

It means that even if all my friends earn a lot and I have nothing, I still feel patient taking my time figuring it out. I'm learning already.

It means that I learn algorithms every day but apply for no jobs, because nothing matters more than the joy for learning. I love learning so much.

I walk to the rhythm of my growth. I might walk slower, I might be dumber, but I am happy with my pace, feel at home with myself, feel at peace with my ability.

— Walk in your own timezone

Patience gives me a lot of humor (read How to move on?). I have tried all the scientific and spiritual methods to move on, but none of them work well enough. So…I decide to do a good deed every day because maybe I have too much sin so I need to redeem it from God first.

Drawing from How to Move On?

I practiced patience every day. Sometimes, I tell myself, "Everything can wait before I exercise today. Everything can wait before I meditate." Sometimes, when I notice I feel the stress of not making it on time, I tell myself my friend can wait. Sometimes, when the job search doesn't go well, I figure I can wait too. In fact, most of the time, the problem is that we push ourselves due to the discomfort of waiting, not the world pushing us.

And then, when I practice so many times in so many situations, I realize, oh! This is just life, and that's how Interpretation 2 emerges itself. Well, Interpretation 1 comes up from time to time too. But as I say, another day, another day of practice. Simple as it is, and that's all.

Anyway, as a person who loves learning, if you actually ask me what I learned in 2023, I will give you a 3-hour lecture. But I think Goodbye Control and Patience are the most precious learnings that I gained. It's not about achieving them, but a practice that I carry with me into 2024.