It's been such a long time since I last wrote, time flies. It's 2019 now and Chinese New Year is coming in the next couple of days. This year I decided to do a more thorough spring cleaning as it's a tradition, I started as early as from the first week of January, bit by bit... juggling between work, social and home life and spent more time these few days on cleaning the kitchen, repainting the grilles, throwing the trashes and grouping the recyclable "unwanted" items.
I came to a profound realization this morning, after cleaning the kitchen, throwing all expired foods and medications, grouping bottles, cans, food containers, plastics, aluminium wraps, cracked glass ornaments and etc yesterday; and of course a nice overnight sleep after getting my fingers ached from spraying the paint, skin on fingers peeled and bled as a result of twisting the cloths dry these few days. Spring cleaning continued this morning after my prayer, I realized that I no longer need some shoes, over the time they became hardened and they are going to hurt my feet if I wear them, so there they went in my recycling items, of course including all the shoe boxes which I wasn't sure why I kept them in the first place. Perhaps it's the clinging on to what I felt good for being able to buy branded, expensive shoes, or I naively thought I needed a reference for future shoe purchase and thus keeping them would help me memorized the shoe boutiques I went before randomly. I was shallow, I knew, but not anymore.
I realized I am also doing my own spiritual and emotional cleaning besides the physical spring cleaning. In life we just need to keep detoxing; detoxing our mind and body to keep us healthy inside out. I decided to move on with my life totally new, deleting unwanted memories, divorcing people or situations that no longer contribute to enhancing my value or serve me right and I stopped holding myself emotional hostage for years.
I stop giving excuses on their behalf and start focusing on my own needs and development. Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards (my favorite quote by Soren Kierkegaard). We just need to stop giving excuses, justifying for others about their behaviors and the reason behind why they behave like that, it's really none of our business how they want to live their lives. We are responsible only for our own lives and happiness, so do the things that make us happy and start installing new beliefs (causes) to unleash our hidden potentials that we never know we have. Remove all the negative beliefs about ourselves such as "I'm not worthy", "No body like or want me", "I'm useless" because all these are the negative causes for a guaranteed effect - failure in life. Start appreciating our own life, ourselves, our qualities, start looking into the mirror to see our true selves and start loving ourselves more and enjoying the me time more.
Also never forget to work on ourselves, take 10 minutes to reflect every morning and rehearse the positive self affirmations few times a day, if we are practicing this on the daily basis, we are installing new positive beliefs (causes) towards the goals we set for ourselves. Remember the trials and tribulations we are facing serve as springboard for us to growth not the other way. When we change the core of our lives, our immediate environment is transformed.
I am grateful that I have this realization, this Chinese New Year is truly different as it serves as a cause for my realization. I am happy that I have chosen to do a thorough spring cleaning instead of being lazy like past years. Spring cleaning continues tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. I am also looking forward for my family reunion.
With this realization, I feel truly liberated for the first time after so many years!