Keepin’ Up With The Joneses.

In Malaysia, it’s more like keeping up with the Yeos, or the Abdullahs or the Singhs. We get SO worked up over who has what job, or who has what car or who has more money that I wonder sometimes if it’s all worth it.

It’s been a long year. For me anyway. And the one thing I’ve learnt is to never,ever, EVER let anyone dictate your life for you. Not your partner, not your friends, not even your parents. Because even if you tell yourself you can get through it, that it’s allright, it won’t be. Because you’ll be lying to yourself. And once you do that, it all goes downhill baby.

You set your standards. You dictate where your life is going. Buy what you wanna buy, don’t buy what you don’t need. And you answer to yourself. No matter how scary everything else might be, having regrets at the end of my days sound the scariest of all.

I’ve had a really good friend ask “how do you get the courage to face bullshit sometimes?”

Well, for me it starts with a picture frame. I’ve always wanted to hang pictures in my home but never got around to it due to all the bullshit that happens that seems to take up the better part of my day. Until one day I woke up and decided I was gonna hang that damn picture if it killed me. So I went out with the intention of buying some 3M hooks (which are brilliant by the way, especially for girls). I got to the hardware store and the heavy duty 3M hooks were outta stock. At that point, I had two choices; give up and go home or look into alternatives (i.e. buy a drill). There was storeclerk 1 & 2 who were both idiots and didn’t know the difference between cement and concrete, so I decided they were probably going to kill me either with their stupidity or the saleage of the wrong electrical tool….so I edged away slowly. Walked into the drill area and there he was: specky, skinny and a walking drill dictionary. He introduced me to drill bits, the difference between a drill for “stuff” and a drill for walls (yeah, its so cool I tell you) and I walked out with a 35% discount. Fast forward 24 hours later, I’m standing in front of my measured wall thinking “fuck I’m so gonna get electrocuted and die alone and that is so unglamorous it’s not even funny” (there’s a light right above where I was drilling and no, there was no other place I wanted to hang the picture). So I paced for like an hour,maybe three….got dressed in rubber gloves and my running shoes (hey,I wanted to be safe allright?) and poised the gun, I mean drill.. at the wall. At the end of 10 minutes, my picture was hung, and nobody died.

So I guess the answer to my friend’s question is simple. Do something you’re absolutely terrified of. By yourself. No man, no friend. nothing. After that, you’ll be able to take on anything. And along the way, you learn stuff, you forget about your fear, your problem, the “too much ness” of it all, you forget the judgemental people who think you can’t do it, because you’re too busy trying to solve it.

Fuck the Joneses. Keep up to you…I reckon it’s way more satisfying.