Resilience

There's a lot that trying times can remind you. Most of all, they bring back your ability to be malleable. Hurricane Harvey for the first time displaced me from my home and my ability to access it. It became clear to me how important it was to be resilient in times you are separated from what want and what you can have.

Good Memory - A double edged sword

Since a kid I was complimented to have the best memory in class. It was just the right skill a high school student needed in an Asian school environment where good grades were heavily dependent on memory. I wasn't smart enough and I knew all along that I couldn't thrive in a difficult or tricky environment if I couldn't in that situation count on my memory. When I came to University and then eventually to the work world, I saw how my good memory was not paying me much dividends.

At age 29, I have understood the true negative of my good memory. I have carried the baggage of my nasty/bad relationships (especially those were people had intentionally wronged me) and I am constantly allowing it to add cumulatively to a pre-existing and pretty full compartment in my mind. A family member once responded with harshness at the way a news was delivered to him rather than a smile on his face and love in his heart at the sweetness of the content of the news. Today as this same individual is celebrating a big day, I feel restless, not because of his actions but because of my own good memory problem. Fact is that I probably meant peanuts to this individual, but I have allowed something in my own power to not be able to feel happy in a joyous moment,

Good memory can certainly allow less pragmatic people to stagnant their growth and achievements some times. If only memories were selective for me, and I can chose which ones to keep and which ones to move past.