Hey guys,
It’s been a while since I did the whole introduction thing, and seeing how much I’ve grown this year, I thought I could take this chance to do it again. So much has happened since the last one of these posts that I wrote.
First of all, let me introduce myself proper. I actually don’t remember if I have ever done this before, but on the assumption that I haven’t, Hello! My name is Jessy. I am a 19 year old, University Year 1 student. I have been blogging since 2013. In fact, I just looked it up and I posted my very first blog post on the 23rd of November, so it has been slightly over 7 years since I started putting my writing out there for people to see. I think I originally started out using an alias, but if I haven’t done it before, then today is the day that ends. I am Jessy.
I’m an ambivert by nature. I enjoy gatherings and days spent exploring the world with my friends, but I also need some sort of balance in my life, time spent with my social circles balanced with time spent with myself, days out balanced with days I spend lazing around at home, or better yet, in my room.
I’m a Gemini, and as much as I know that Geminis don’t have the best reputation (some say we’re two-faced and all that), I’m damn proud to be a Gemini. I think that being the twins means that we are adaptable, and it also means that when I self talk, it’s really easy to frame it as I’m talking to my other twin. My MBTI is INFJ-T (58%, 62%, 78%, 71% – 64%). Based on 16personalities.com, this means that I am a Turbulent Advocate. The reason this even forms a part of this post is because I’m really into these things, horoscopes, MBTI, anything that can tell me a little more about myself, I love. I sometime think about going for a fortune telling or palm reading session, but I’ve never actually done it before. I don’t really know why, but these sort of things intrigue me to no end. I guess part of it stems from me wanting to know exactly where my life is going, and if my horoscopes and MBTI can shed some light on it, then why not right? I also think about whether I’ll be able to have a book that outlines my life for me, and I sometimes crave for someone to tell me what I’m supposed to do, what decisions to make and what my life goal is.
As you probably can tell by now, my mind works in ways even I don’t understand. So I’m just going to try.
I’m a heartland gal at heart, and compared to going to town, I’d much much rather spend time in places closer to home. The only exception I can think of is going to bookstores haha. HMU to go to Kinokuniya at anytime man. Perhaps also book stores hopping.
There are maybe about 4 things that catch my attention- Stitch merchandise (as in the cartoon character), books, cute stationery and photography related things. I’m not a shopaholic until it comes to one of these 4 things; my shopping is usually very targeted, and you would never find me shopping around for things like bags and clothes unless I’m desperate and out of options of what to do to kill time. Put me in a book store or a stationery shop however, and I would be able to spend the entire day there, no complains.
Some people ask me what an ideal day in my life looks like, and my answer has been the same for a couple of years now. I would love to be able to curl up on a couch by a window on a rainy day, diving into a good book and a cup of hot chocolate by my side.
I’m a huge over thinker, and I have a tendency of over analyse everything that happens in my life. This is huge part of why I write, because when things happen in my head, they sometimes feel extremely overwhelming, but when they are on paper, they seem much less so. This is also why, I am a huge advocate for journalling, because it works for me.
I’m an opinionated girl. I have my views on the world and I stand by them. I’m not saying that I don’t change my opinions, but I need to be convinced, simply because I don’t take on opinions based on who has them.
Just like most girls out there, I think about what my ideal life could look like. I dream about things bigger than what I currently know, and I have no idea whether they even have the chance to come to fruit, but I dream. On the surface, I’m a huge workaholic. I put my work above everything else, I take on more commitments than I probably should, and all in all, I push myself and try to achieve what I never did before. Charting new territory excites me like nothing else. Taking on projects of bigger and bigger scales might mean that I get more stressed out with every project coming my way, but that sense of fulfilment is something I cannot explain.
Resilience has been a large part of my life. I wouldn’t say that I was born emotionally strong, but what I have been through in my life has taught me to be so. So if it comes down to it, yes, I would say that I’m a strong person.
But even the strongest girls just want a shoulder to lean on sometimes, someone to love and be loved. Deep down, in a part of me that not many people know of, I’m a hopeless romantic. I dream about finding someone to love and be loved, someone who understands what I’m working for and why I push myself so hard, someone to keep me grounded in my toughest days, someone to be my shelter from the outside storm. When I let my mind wonder, it sometimes wonders to what my dream wedding could look like. I await the arrival of my cute love story, and I think about having someone turn up at my doorstep for no reason, seeing him at the void deck just waiting for me when I come home from a long day of work.
But the introvert in me plays against these ideals. I have a tendency to withdraw when people start to get closer to me. Perhaps it’s a fear of suffocation, perhaps it’s a fear of being hurt by the ones you love the most, but my most treasure friendships are the low maintenance ones, friends whom you don’t meet often, but when you do it’s like nothing has changed. So while I sometimes do look at IG stories and think about how nice it is that people are always out with their friends, I know that it is not something I can do, and if I do, it’s more draining for me than energising.
Just like any other human being, I hate change. Change is uncomfortable and I’d much rather have things in my life remain the same. I spent so much time trying to achieve positive change in my work that I would appreciate it if my personal life doesn’t change so much. I get attached to the weirdest things in my life for this very reason. It was such an emotional journey when my parents decided to change the fridge after 20 years. But I guess, to some extent, it serving us for so long has led to it being a part of my childhood memories, and a little part of me I didn’t want to let go. Like I said, I hate change when it happens in my personal life.
I’m a very confident person when it comes to my work, my views and opinions, but strip that all away and I’m not a particularly confident person when it comes to confidence about myself. I don’t have the best level of self-esteem, and my identity is tied to my work to a larger extent than is healthy. Just because I’m writing things and putting them online for others to read in no way means that I’ve got my life figured out. I’m just as lost as you guys are and the only reason I’m even doing this is to share experiences, and more than anything, document my journey for myself.
Yes. In some ways, I’m doing this for myself. Some people have the noblest of reason of why they start writing and putting out content, and I look up to them and respect them so much for that. But on the note of being transparent and honest with anyone who even bothered to read this far, this blog was not started for that reason. I only started writing because I wanted to document my journey. I wanted a digital diary of what I went through, what events happened and how I felt about certain things, something for me to look back on every couple of years to see if I had grown, something for me to look back on and reminisce when I’m old and grey. This is the main reason why I don’t bother doing much in terms of publicity for this platform, simply because the intent of this channel was never tied to any form of outreach. This is my safe space and if you happen to be inspired by my story, or if anything I said here has managed to encourage your heart, then that’s a huge bonus for me.
I’m someone who is always seeking mentors. Over the course of this year, I’ve learnt the value of mentorship. To be frank, as much as I say I don’t care about what people think of me, that’s not the whole truth. I see the value in both schools of thoughts (see, the Twins have differing opinions, which is one big source of my internal conflict haha), but the balance is not as easy to find as it seems. On one hand, I care too much about what people think of me, and I always want to hear their thoughts about what I’m doing and how else I can improve. Because I will always be a work in progress, the work I’m doing will always be a work in progress and there will always be room for my improvement. On the other hand, I also understand where people are coming from when they spread the message of being true to yourself, and not letting the opinions of others get to you, simply because they are not on the same journey as you. Again, both arguments make perfect sense to be, but the key is in balance.
Do you have that one cousin or sibling who on the surface has everything together? Good grades, always in some sort of leadership role, teachers love him/her? That cousin or sibling that your mom is always comparing you to?
Well, my upbringing had a lot to do with it but I grew up being that cousin/sibling. As a child, I did well in school. I worked hard of course, and I got good grades. While my cousins were engaged in struggles with their teacher-in-charge, I was doing really well in my CCA. Teachers generally had me in their good books and that really helped when it came to Exco selection and other leadership opportunities.
But life isn’t always a bed of roses. I was struggling in other areas of my life, and I still am, but no one actually sees that do they?
And yeah, that’s why I treasure this little space of mine so much, because it is here where I no longer have to live up to anyone’s expectations, I no longer have to be the Jessy that everyone knows, Jessy the one who gets good grades, Jessy the one in XX leadership role. I can just be Jessy.
One of the things I value the most is vulnerability. I think that it is extremely attractive (and not just in the romantic relationship sense). Vulnerability is the root of many things I value, to be honest, things like honesty and a drive to continue learning. To me, vulnerability also signals a level os immense trust, because society has conditioned us to hide our most vulnerable side from the rest of the world, to portray only what is conventionally thought to be strength. But vulnerability, the sign of immense strength, is too often seen as a sign of weakness instead. So with that conditioning, we generally just aren’t vulnerable with people we don’t trust.
When I serve the community, there are 2 communities I’m particularly passionate about – Youths and Mental Health.
I love working with youths because they are such an awesome bunch. Many ‘at-risk’ youths, the ones who are always getting into trouble at school, they have the most heart-wrenching stories, their lives filled with so much disappointment and so many needs that haven’t been met. No child is born bad, and no child is bad for no reason. And for me, I find joy in interacting with them, just so that they know that no matter how many people out there disappoint them, there will always be at least one person cheering them on, believing in them.
My other area of passion is mental health, and again, this comes from a very personal place. Remember how I spoke about me having my own set of challenges that no one saw, the part where people only see the glamour and the highlight reel of my life? Mental health challenges was one thing I struggled with. I was never diagnosed, but that doesn’t take anything away from my experience. I went through a period of not knowing my worth, not knowing what I was working for. It was a period of time I describe as me having lost my spark. It was a difficult journey, but I eventually made it out somewhat intact, without the usage of medication or professional help. I believe I managed to make do because what I experienced was really really mild. But if my extremely mild condition brought me so much pain and sadness, and brought with it such a difficult journey to recovery, then how tough must it be for people with severe enough conditions to be diagnosed? How much harder must it be for them, without throwing societal stigma in to the mix? So it is really because of what I experienced that I started to feel very much for this community, and ignited the passion to spread the awareness on this topic and serve this community.
This is of course, just a very short summary of this entire story, but I will definitely be speaking about it more in detail in a future post.
Perhaps, just before I end off, let me just share a little more about my current situation.
So I’m a Y1 NUS FASS + USP student now, and I’m going to start my 2nd semester in University in a couple of weeks. My first semester grades really weren’t that great, and there is a lot of work that I need to do if I want the next couple of years of my life to go the way I planned for it to.
I started One Step At A Time this year, together with 4 other friends. In the coming year, we will be operationally handing the initiative over to a new team to manage, but I’m in no way completely removing myself from it. One Step is my personal branding, has been and always will be. Recruiting a new team will bring new life to the initiative however, and it will grow in ways I never saw coming. The team is very very capable, from what I see now, and the coming year is definitely going to be an exciting one, so do follow us over at @01step_at_a_time if you haven’t. You won’t want to miss out on what is coming your way:D
Removing myself from the front lines of managing One Step will also leave me with more time to grow in other ways. I do have some pretty big plans for Soulfood as well.
In the past year, I saw the value in personal development, and I’ve learnt a lot about it this past year, but there is still so much to be learnt. And it’s a rabbit hole I intend to venture further down in this coming year as well.
So with that, I hope that you’ve gotten to know me on a more personal level. This is definitely something new for me, and I’ve never shared to this level of detail before but still I hope you enjoyed the read. If there is anything else you want to know, feel free to let me know in the comments below and as long as it’s appropriate, I’ll be more than happy to share.
I’ll be back with a new post soon! But till then, happy Boxing Day and have a great year ahead. May 2021 be kind to us all.
PS. Future Jessy, if you’re reading this then yes, this was who you were at the end of 2020. I hope you’re doing well there in the future! I’m working hard for you yah.
One Step At A Time 