You are only as free as you think you are and freedom will always be as real as you believe it to be.
Robert M. Drake, Beautiful Chaos

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You are only as free as you think you are and freedom will always be as real as you believe it to be.
Robert M. Drake, Beautiful Chaos

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âŠthe sad part is, that I will probably end up loving you without you for much longer than I loved you when I knew you.Some people might find that strange.But the truth of it is that the amount of love you feel for someone and the impact they have on you as a person, is in no way relative to the amount of time you have known them.
Ranata Suzuki
For I am a drop of water, I may change but I will never vanish in thin air.
Debasish Mridha
Whatever you do, wherever you are, whenever you are ready, always do what you love, for love shall find you unlock your passion, and shall you be a great potential soul!
Dealing with the pressure to achieve
Inspired by @collegemodeâs post about gifted kids.Â
Link to the post is here. It got me thinking a lot about how, so often, many of us [particularly here where I live, in Asia] are faced with the pressure to do well in school, to excel, and to achieve. We go to schools that, from young, drill a mark-objective mentality into learning. If itâs not from the schools, it just exists SO much in our societies. As someone who goes to a very academic, result-oriented school, I know what thatâs like.Â
Don't get me wrong, I love my school. I miss going there so much (with the quarantine and all) and I love my friends and all of my teachers. It's been a place of wonderful memories and learning.
But I wrote this in the hopes that sharing my story may help those of you who are also struggling with this problem.Â
PROBLEM #1: Resting VS Unproductivity
It's just... I read a lot about "burn-out" and I am so scared it will happen to me. Maybe youâre scared it will happen to you. Maybe it has happened to you. I'm trying to find a balance between working hard and taking rest, but the whole "resting" thing is kind of alien to me to the point where I don't really know when it's TOO much or not enough. And I think that is the first problem. We are always being pushed to fill our time with things deemed âproductiveâ - our extra-curricular activities are tailored to ensure success in our tertiary education.
Itâs been quite difficult to come to terms with the fact that taking a break is okay. Not every second needs to be filled with purpose. Sometimes, itâs good enough to just exist. It might be a little unnerving. Maybe youâre afraid youâll get so used to ârestingâ youâll never be able to work again, or that youâll become a lazy couch potato.Â
And thatâs the thing. We need to learn how to relax. How to unwind. How to watch Netflix and not get addicted. Thereâs nothing wrong with binge-watching: except when that binge-watching is replacing studying for an upcoming test. Believe you me, I had that problem. My solution was to stop watching Netflix entirely during schooling days, but Iâve realised that was never a viable solution. I essentially âran awayâ from my problem. We need to learn itâs okay to like things, and learn how to do so in moderation. If youâre planning on watching then getting back to work, write it down in a schedule and commit to going back to work after your break.Â
Little by little, discipline will form.
PROBLEM #2: Misconceptions about hard work.
 I know the grades I achieve come from hard work (and not from being intrinsically genius) but a lot of times my peers don't see that, so they continue to project that unhealthy mentality of "gifted kids" no matter how much I try to change their minds. Itâs a huge labelling thing, that I am guilty of too.
âHe/she is the smart kid.â The âsmartâ kids being people whoâd achieve the best grades, top all the exams. They were the ones people wanted in their group projects. Then of course, there were the âquietâ kids, and all the other classroom personalities.Â
A lot of the time, I was labelled as one of the smart kids. I suppose in a sense, it could be flattering, but then weâve got this huge huge huge misconception about what it means to be âsmartâ. Itâs also a little heartbreaking, specially in Primary school, when people only want to befriend you because they think youâll help them out, or join their group and do most of the work.Â
I've always held back from speaking out about it, because, nobody wants to hear the âsmart kidâ complain. I'm afraid people will think that I am being ungrateful, that I'm complaining about getting good grades. But it's not like that at all, and I really hope it doesn't come across that way.
Iâm tenth grade, and have another one and half years to go before I graduate from school. I have this huge pressure to do well for my igcses and get all A*, and sometimes I'm not sure if I can do it myself. It's a goal I would like to achieve,, but it's kind of scary. My peers, and my teachers too, I think, are kind of expecting this and I have this horrid fear that I won't make it and everyone will be disappointed! I've ranked first in the year every year since Year 3. And even writing that, and admitting it, is scary to me.  I donât like talking about those achievements, because there is just so much doubt that follows.
It is motivation to go further, but at the same time, it's "holy shit if I don't make it this year then im going to look like such a disappointment ohmygod ohmygod.. "
âAll those books and articles about high-school burn out are right, what if I really have âpeaked in high schoolâ and Iâm never going to do well in ANYTHING ELSE ever again?âÂ
It scares me. It really does. But at the same time, I know a lot of these thoughts are not me, but the manifestation of the pressure being put on me. Itâs one of those things where you know you shouldnât compare yourself to others, but itâs just so hard not to.
Talking to someone you trust helps.
My ex-Principal and I were quite close, and "close" in the sense that I felt I could talk to her about stress, or feeling pressured, and all that sort. I joined the Prefectorial Board in my school in Year 7, and she was the Prefect Advisor, and thatâs really how she got to know me, and perhaps vice-versa. It was only really in Year 8 and 9 when I opened up about my feelings.
Talking to her was probably the first time I had ever talked to anybody, properly talked to anybody, about how stressed and worried I was. I didn't even realise it was something that I had been bottling up, because I literally just burst into tears when she talked to me.Â
God, it was kind of embarrassing. We were on our way back from a Leadership conference and I guess the âtriggerâ was me, having an argument [no, more accurately my dad scolding me on the phone about something] and me, feeling so upset that I finished her box of tissues and I was just like NSKSJSKS :"((.
I've always been someone who can appear confident. I'm a loud, outgoing, extroverted person so maybe that's why. But sitting with my principal and talking to her literally made me realise I had so many insecurities and anxieties that I kept telling myself I didn't have, or I kept pushing away.Â
I find it difficult to tell people no, and itâs because I hate letting people down. Out of all my fears, my fear of disappointing others is huge - especially my parents, and it doesnât really help that I do have that typical âAsian mentalityâ of doing whatever it takes to make mom and dad happy. They donât pressure me outwardly, but itâs still âthereâ.Â
To use an euphemism, my âbruhhâ moment of realisation was when my principal said to me, ânobody really knows, nobody really sees everything behind your resultsâ - a tip of the ice-berg kind of thing. Hell, I havenât even summoned the courage to talk about this to my parents. You canât expect people to psychically know how you feel if you donât talk to them. I agree - I love both of my parents. I know everything they do is just for the betterment of my well-being.
âWhy havenât you talked to them?â she asked.
I donât know. I donât want them to be disappointed, or to be more honest, I donât want to be a âburdenâ. It sounds stupid... but theyâre busy people. My dad is really stressed a lot of the time, and additionally, I only rarely feel so low.Â
Iâm not going to tell you to talk to your parents if youâre not comfortable, because neither am I [though I hope to get there someday], but you do need to âlet it outâ. Someone you trust, someone whoâs going to listen and give good advice is the one you need to talk to.
And hey, my DMs are open too. Though please excuse my social awkwardness sometimes - I will be listening too.Â
Something she said that really stuck with me [no, itâs not really anything cosmically amazing], was she asked me:
âWhat do you want?âÂ
What do you want to achieve? Is this something thatâs going to make you happy?Â
And I think in dealing with the pressure to achieve... this is something thatâs so, so, so important. If youâre going to be working hard, you should work hard for something thatâll make you happy. Donât lie to yourself, because then youâll be lying to yourself for the rest of your life.
This doesnât mean donât think about others. Thinking about what you want doesnât automatically make you a selfish person. Itâs something that has helped me move away from being hyper-competitive. Itâs a slow, long journey.... but we will all get there, eventually.
<3 lots of love,Â
- tv

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When I was with him suddenly I wasnât this broken person anymore.I was just me.I was whole again.I was just a person â like everyone else.
Ranata Suzuki
Itâs painful, loving someone from afar.Watching them â from the outside.The once familiar elements of their life reduced to nothing more than occasional mentions in conversations and faces changing in photographsâŠ..They exist to you now as nothing more than living proof that something can still hurt you ⊠with no contact at all.
Ranata Suzuki