I will try not to delve on myself in this blog post. Instead, I want to give tips on how to best live a healthy and fulfilling life, in my opinion. Healthy not as meaning a balanced intake of your basic food groups every day, but a life that is healthy for the mind - psychological health. Everybody will see life differently, so please take this post with a grain of salt - it's written from my point of view. So here goes.
1) Find your passion and KNOW it.
There's nothing that I hate more than to meet someone who has no passions. It's fine to say "I don't know what I want to do with my degree" or "I don't know what to do in the future", but I think it's an absolute offense to the world for someone not to have any sort of passions. Everyone has at least one, often many - mine is knowledge, food, and music, others might like linking together circuits to create devices, or designing a city, or something else. Even if your study is not related to it, it's fine. The point of having a passion is to have a purpose to fall back upon. It's extremely easy to become disenchanted with life when there's nothing holding you to the world.
2) Accept life as a given
Everything in life happens for a reason. Most of the time, that reason is yourself - the mere fact that you exist means that stuff will happen to you. It's inevitable. It's not always what we choose. But that's what makes life so interesting, no? I used to lament on my homosexuality, and I used to wish that I could simply be normal. But now, I've accepted it and embraced it as a part of myself, and I've grown to love life even more by doing it. Everyone is unique, and nothing is better or worse than anything else - what matters is what we make with what is given to us, and that's completely in our hands to control.
3) Do not live with regrets
I've gradually learned this lesson painfully for the past 8 years - as a closeted individual in elementary school and secondary school, I've been afraid of ever coming out, mostly because of my family. But as I found myself in college, my fear of repressing myself forever began to battle my fear of coming out, until eventually it won - and I came out of the closet. I believe this point to be the most important point you could ever have in life. You only live life a certain way once, so why would you live in regret? If you are afraid of doing something, ask yourself this question: will I be more afraid of facing myself for the rest of my life not doing this thing? Every decision you make should be a conscientious decision. If you choose to do something, stick with your decision and don't second-guess yourself - you merely chose a path through life, one of many. You may not like the outcome, and that's fine, but never regret the fact that you made that decision. If you choose not to do something, do so conscientiously, and don't regret your decision. If you think you will regret it, then you need to swallow your fears and do it - because you never want to second-guess your decisions in life.
4) Know your limits, and set no limits beyond what is absolutely necessary
A lot of times, opportunity arises unexpectedly, and are only evanescent for an instant. You'll need to make a snap decision, and you'll either grasp it or lose it. In these times, it is important to know yourself and your limits really well, so that you don't dawdle and lose the opportunity. Apart from this, it is also important to try new things in life, so that you experience the most out of life. There's a difference between sensible fears and irrational fears, and I think we should all try to overcome our irrational fears.
5) Smile, Joke, and Laugh!
One of my friends asked me the other day how I am able to engage people in conversation so well, whether it's a bartender or barista or even random stranger on the street. I basically gave him one hint: smile more when you talk. He came back a week later and said it seems to work wonders. But that's a lesson - society is not supposed to be impersonal and cold. When we open our hearts, good things will happen. I've gotten free food and drinks from places just because I initiated a conversation with the barista / server while waiting for them to make the drink / food. Your passions and important to you, so take these seriously in conversation - but for everything else, loosen up and treat it all as a gift you've been given. Because you have - without interactions with each other, we are not human.
6) Do not obsess about how society sees you
You're you, and you're nobody else. Don't conform to what others want you to be - create yourself into the person you want to be, as long as it doesn't prevent others from doing the same things for themselves. For others' reactions, let them think what they will. For example, I often walk around barefoot because it's comfortable - others can deal with it as they see fit. I don't really care that much about how others see me - if I'm dancing on the dance floor, or singing karaoke, I'm thinking only about my own enjoyment and nobody else's. I may dance poorly or sing off-key, but I don't care because I'm enjoying it. Don't let others prevent you from enjoying who you are.
7) Stop and smell the roses
In our daily life as engineers, it is so easy to become so engrossed in our work that we stop seeing the small wonderful things of life. Follow your natural impulses. If the weather is good, go outside and enjoy it. I had an impulse one day to climb the giant bronze monument outside of Grainger as I passed it, so I did - and it was fun. There's a lot we miss when we close off our minds to anything outside of our routine.
8) Try new things!
Is there something gross-looking in the store window that you would never voluntarily try in your life? Go try it - test out your intuition. I've tried the weirdest foods this way - cow tongues, duck tongues, cow lungs, dog meat, frog meat, crocodile meat, sea horses, crayfish, and much more. If anything, you confirm your fears and never try it again. But at least you'll be able to say "hey I got up the courage to try this even though I didn't think I could." I've done the most difficult things in life this way. Skydiving, debating, studying abroad, and rock climbing being some of the most prominent ones. Life never gets dull this way!
9) Know that you are stronger, more capable, and more resilient than you think
Most of us have never truly pushed our boundaries of capabilities in life, but I think we'd all be surprised at what we can withstand if needed. I set a challenging goal for myself every semester to constantly test the waters of my capabilities. When people ask me "how do you survive taking 22 hours??" I tell them - you sign up for it and you'll survive it. Many of us have constructed imaginary barriers in our minds that prevent us from actually using all of our skills at our disposal, but if we just believe in ourselves, we find that we are actually much more capable than we imagined. But don't take my word for it - try it out for yourself.
10) Constantly engage those around you to be better
I'm saddened whenever I see potential capabilities in people go unused or wasted. My goal is always to strive to make those around me become better people. In the process, I've made myself a better person and made some of my closest friends this way.
So there you go, those are all the things I can think of right now. I'm sure that there are more things that can be said, and that some people will be extremely uncomfortable with following some of the things on this list. But hey, this is how I interact with the world, and I'm happy with it.
-FCDH
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