As you may know from my introduction post that this is my second attempt at a PhD. In the past year there has so many uncertainty, I often ask myself, what happen to me? How did I get here? I have always been someone who knows what she wants and knows how to keep herself motivated even when the circumstances are pushing her away from her goal . I know how to keep myself motivated. I have a goal in vision and I will channel all my energy towards that goal. This is not the case this year. It seemed that after I won one battle, I lost another battle. I know to win the war, you may have to lose some battles. It is very hard to keep yourself motivated after you lose a battle when your self-esteem is at its ultimate low. This past year ,I have lost my confidence, my so called friends, and my self respect. I went through depression. I realized that I need to start saying no to the people who only care to say... "Ohhh Ainie you poor thing", but does nothing to remotely help you. Sometimes, all I need is a piece of advice not just a shopping spree. I know they are trying to help. How can you help when you don't understand what the person is going through?
"And so I learned to depend on me...," a verse from my all time favorite song (Whitney Houston, The greatest love of all). Only now at the age of 36, I understand the meaning of this verse. So what do I do, I look for a piece of advice on the Internet, the advice I need to get out if this depression state. I stop looking at what I should have done. Now, I am looking at what I need to do to get the PhD done.
I am going to start with a plan. I need a detailed schedule of my daily activities. I need to treat life as a 24- hour canvas of activities for my spiritual enrichment, PhD, family, and work. If I finish these priority, then I can have a me time. Otherwise me time is a luxury right now. Masha Allah, it is not easy but it can be done. I found a website that said starting over is a good thing for the person because he now brings his previous experience to improve this new project. I can see how I can do that, too.
With this I will end this discussion tonight with planning for tomorrow. I shall no longer dwell on the past for it is certainly gone, but tomorrow is certainly a new opportunity to move forward.
