Self-Reflection
This is something I thought of as I reread a few things I wrote a while back. I don't expect it to be significant, but I do think it's interesting to look over.
Life has its ups and downs, as we've all been told. And I've been somewhat more keen of these peaks and troughs over the past few years since they've had a much larger effect on my health. I've noticed months where I've been miserable, and other months where I've been blissful.
I also wanted to elaborate on one of my more recent "downs," because I feel like in the moment, the effects of poor mental health feel severe and endless, but looking back, it seems so whimsical, if not a bit despondent. I think one of my main takeaways from reading what I wrote around two months ago is that life does get better. It seems so cliche, but yes, in fact, life gets better. Even if the situation barely changes, life gets better. There is always a light at the tunnel, no matter how far or how dim.
Reflection and Astonishment
Looking back, some of the things I wrote were interesting, to say the least. I'll paste it here, since I don't really know how to explain what I wrote. There's nothing incriminating in my two month old thoughts, just pure, unfiltered writing.
How much regret can someone take before it becomes too much to handle?
I don’t think I’m at that point, but I’m certainly not on the other extreme either. I have probably cried more in the past day than in the month before that. It hurts, but the sadness and the anger never get anywhere. It’s always the same thoughts that pop into my head. “Why can’t I be good enough?” “Why can’t I do anything right?” “What is wrong with me?” “Why am I like this?” I think the self-hatred is taking a huge toll on me, but I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know why I chose to do what I did, but the consequences are clearly showing up and I think I’m crumbling. Finally.
The past semester for me has been failure after failure and rejection after rejection. Top that off with chronic sleep deprivation and chronic whatever else I have, and that’s just a recipe for misery. My mental health has been in the trenches, and after every failure or rejection, I try to shake it off, and I try to move on. I try to learn from what happened as I should. But it hurts. It hurts regardless of how much I try to push it aside. It hurts so much that I snapped today. I found out that I couldn’t participate in the Speech and Debate state tournament, and I just cried my eyes out on a walk shortly after. It hurts. It’s a mix of sadness, anger, frustration, and loathing. I can’t take it anymore.
Another problem that I could get into is how poorly I handle my emotions. On the lighter side, it means that I cannot keep a poker face while playing cards to save my life. On the darker side, it means that I am horrible at containing my emotions no matter how hard I try, and the tears just flow regardless of how tightly I squeeze the valve shut. It also means that I just can’t control myself when I cry, even in the privacy of my own room. I can cry silently, but I can’t control it far beyond that.
But getting back on point, I think handling regret is a fine balance between learning from the past and focusing on the present. Tip too far in one direction and you get rumination; tip too far in the other and you get ignorance. Of course it’s much easier said than done, but it seems like something I could work on going forward. As cliche as it sounds, I try telling myself that life will get better and that rejection is normal, and I will just have to hope that it works.
Ending on a more positive note, I do feel better after writing this, and I feel a bit more hopeful. It seems painful, trying to push past failures and rejections, but I just have to tell myself that it’s doable, and that I just have to focus on learning and not letting it affect my day to day (I would’ve used the word “quotidian” but it sounds too pretentious) life.
I hope you enjoyed reading this, and if you didn’t, then I’m sorry I wasn’t up to your standards. I’m not up to my own either.
Love you all,
James
Looking back, I can't help but feel a bit of cringe as I read my writing, but I still remember that the emotions I felt were very real. Some of the things I included, such as mentioning the Speech and Debate tournament, certainly undermine the seriousness of the writing a bit, however. I also don't know what I was thinking when I ended with "Love you all."
But looking over it, some of the things I said were pretty creative. "...I am horrible at containing my emotions no matter how hard I try, and the tears just flow regardless of how tightly I squeeze the valve shut." I don't even know how I came up with a sentence that creative, considering I probably wrote this late at night. I also like a particular sentence I wrote because it's pretty introspective:
"Handling regret is a fine balance between learning from the past and focusing on the present. Tip too far in one direction and you get rumination; tip too far in the other and you get ignorance." --James Lee
That's some deep stuff right there.
Life Update!
Unfortunately, progress in Japanese and Korean is slowing down. However, as IVE's Leeseo and U.S. President Abraham Lincoln said, "I walk slowly but I never walk backwards." I'm still making progress, which I'll take as a small win. I also got accepted into the 2025 Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics, which I've been ecstatic about. I searched it up and apparently the acceptance rate is 5% (take it with a grain of salt), so I am grateful for making it through such a competitive pool of applicants. I have to pay for part of it, since my parents are covering the other part, which I think is reasonable.
But yeah, overall, life's been great. Just know that it always gets better. No matter what.
YES JAMES
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