I met my high school classmate today.  It's been a while. Sad to say that we have grown up to become those adults who succumbed to the "hey, let's meet someday" wherein for some odd reasons, we just put it off until "someday" never happens.

Fortunately, we made it today! 
Dirty laundry #2:   

Since 2020, I started ditching physical books and went on to be a digital reader. I didn’t like the fact that I have to face a dilemma of whether to keep or throw a book after I had finished reading it, particularly a book that sits on the fence with my liking (side effect of Konmari). Not only does reading digitally saves me space and money, I also started appreciating the convenience of audiobooks that save me so much time - perfect for a multitasker like me.

However, reading off my laptop has not been the most convenient approach. It works and I love my Macbook with all my heart, just that (1) I can’t bring my Macbook everywhere with me without feeling the weight (2) the computer screen strains my eyes after reading several pages. 

A few Youtubers that I follow (like Jenn Im and Ali Abdaal) constantly rave about their Kindles, but it's such a challenge to find one in Malaysia, physically. I wanted to see and feel it with my own hands before deciding if it's my cup of tea (another side effect of Konmari: I wanted to make sure it will spark joy). 

During the Lunar New Year at the start of February this year, my cousin showed up with a Kindle in her handbag. I finally got to try it out - and yes, I liked it right away. So when my mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday, which was on the 12th of February, I asked for a Kindle.

I first added this book into my to-read list after Jenn Im recommended it on her Youtube channel. However, I just never got to it. Until Erin May Henry posted on her Instagram story captioning it as that one book she thinks everyone should read. So, without further a due, I knew I had to get to it immediately.

This book is written in seemingly simple English and broken down into short chapters. It has a lot of bullet points instead of long passages. Although it doesn’t consist of deep English vocabulary, it took me longer than usual to finish because it required some thinking and self-reflection in the reading process. Skip this book if you are not ready to face your internal bullshits and not willing to do some inner work - because it will just be a waste of effort and time to even sit through the book. 

I agree with Erin May Henry that this is hands-down one of the books that everyone should from time to time come back to. It is such a powerful pick-me-up and the author covered most aspects of our lives with brutally honest wake-up calls. I read it during the Lunar New Year holidays (including my birthday and Valentines' Day), and it got me 

Side track a little:
I decided to add a new section to my blog where I talk about books that I personally read. Recently, I heard a podcast that said, “creating an output of the things you learn will double the effect of the initial input”. Thus, here’s #FionReads where I will share my thoughts and some book excerpts/quotes that I picked out during the reading process. 

♠You needlessly create problems and crises in your life because you’re afraid of actually living it. The pattern of unnecessarily creating crises in your life is actually an avoidance technique. It distracts you from actually having to be vulnerable or held accountable for whatever it is you’re afraid of. You’re never upset for the reason you think you are.

♠ Fear means you’re trying to move toward something you love, but your old beliefs, or unhealed experiences, are getting in the way.

♠ Discomfort is what happens when we are on the precipice of change. Unfortunately, we often confuse it for unhappiness and cope with the latter while running from the former. It usually takes a bit of discomfort to break through to a new understanding, to release a limiting belief, to motivate ourselves to create real change.

♠ Nobody wants to believe happiness is a choice, because that puts responsibility in their hands. It’s the same reason people self-pity: to delay action, to make an outcry to the universe, as though the more they state how bad things are, the more likely it is that someone else will change them.

♠ Most common root of discomfort: the space between knowing and doing.

♠ Emotional intelligence is the ability to feel, express, and interpret your feelings productively; self-esteem is believing you’re worthy of loving and being loved despite not being supremely, completely “good” all of the time; happiness is a product of how you cope with your problems and whether or not you see them as the opportunities they are.

♠ The confidence people have in their beliefs is not a measure of the quality of evidence, but of the coherence of the story that the mind has managed to construct.

♠ “What do I want?” is a question you need to ask yourself every day.

♠ We make assumptions based on what our current circumstances “mean” about us, and then also begin to believe that things will always be the way they are—hence why tragedies feel so insurmountable, yet happiness feels so fleeting (in fearing that happiness won’t last forever, we lose it—in fearing that grief will last forever, we create it).

♠ Discomfort is in avoiding the pain, not the pain itself.

♠ Take an honest look at your life and evaluate how much you’ve constructed as a means to avoid pain, and decide whether or not those fears are even valid in the first place

♠ Choose to believe that everything is here to help us.

♠ You’re mentally lazy. You know you should be more present, but you won’t put in the effort to practice it.

♠ Losers wait to feel motivated.

♠ Everything in your life does one of three things: shows you to yourself, heals a part of yourself, or lets you enjoy a part of yourself.

♠ Ask yourself: “If the whole world were blind, how many people would I impress?”

♠ It may not be your fault, but it is still your problem.

♠ Trying to make sense of your life is what’s actually holding you back.

♠ Anxiety is usually bred out of inaction.

♠ What you most dislike in others is, in some variation, true of you: You just haven’t been able to acknowledge it yet. The more angrily and fiercely you respond “no” to that idea, the more intensely you are trying to avoid it. Anger = recognition. You don’t lash back at things you don’t, in some way, regard as being real. So figure out what you most need to heal within yourself by seeing what you most want to change in others. Doing so will free you in a way you can’t imagine. Doing so is a necessary piece of the life-you-want puzzle, because all the energy you’re using trying to avoid, deflect, delude your way into not acknowledging what you need to heal/change/deal is being wasted, at best, and is actually actively keeping you from the life you want, at worst.

♠ Whenever there is a problem in your life, there is a problem with how you are thinking, reacting, or responding.

♠ I decide. My circumstances don’t.

♠ All things are good, because all things serve us in the way of growth and development.

♠ Anything that exists in your life exists because you created it. Anything that persists does so because you are feeding it.

♠ You are not in the world; the world is in you.

♠ Being fearful of moving forward and more fearful of going back—is the only guaranteed way that it will ruin you.

 

Where did half of 2021 go anyway? Looking back at my 1st quarter recap, my year started off with a lockdown. However, as I am typing this at the start of the 3rd quarter, we are in another lockdown. Well done Malaysia!! 

The only fortunate thing was that we actually had a couple of months of freedom (from February to Mid of May - right after I celebrated Mother's Day in advance). If not, I'm sure that most people would've gone crazy by now.