5th Blog Anniversary | Reflecting On Where I Stand, My Future Career, My Vision

Actually An Evil Nymph’s Blog blog anniversary was on the 1st August and it wasn’t until WordPress congratulated me on that milestone that I realised it. I knew 1st August was something special! Dang it!

Anyways, at that time, I had just published a post a few hours earlier and so I decided to wait a little more before putting up a proper ‘Happy Blog Anniversary’ post. However, yes, since I’m back to school and new into my third year, my responsibilities got in the way. In fact, I would have completely forgotten about blogging it if it was not for my Google Calendar, in which I have set a goal to blog once a week.

That’s how crazy life gets when the semester starts and you are involved in many things, including being a (High, sometimes) Distinction student. I literally need my phone to remind me of everything, haha!

Anyway, it’s been five years, guys. Five years since I started blogging. I can’t describe how much it has opened my eyes to the world… and my own. My blogging style has changed a lot throughout the years, but I believe that the main reason I got so immersed in blogging was not only my passion for writing, but my search for who I am, an identity, to find myself. 

I’ve been from being a short story writer, to an avid NaNoWriMo one, to being a photographer, a painter, a YouTuber, a psychologist… a jack of all trades but a master of… what? Indeed, one thing I learnt was that you never cease to find yourself, because it is more correct to, in fact, say ‘yourselves’, because there are many sides of you that will want different things out of life. I’ve been changing my hobbies endlessly and even my career choices.

And somehow, it gets more and more confusing, because although you have accepted all these sides of you, society still demands for one. What do you want to do after you graduate? Well… I have many plans… in no particular order, that I’ll pick according to what happens then.

Nevertheless, I’ve been reading a lot of articles about finding your vision in life. A vision is more than a dream, it’s something you really really aim for, with all your power and will. It’s that thing that keeps you going when life lets you down. And indeed, life does let you down many times, and it’s hard to get back up when you lack a vision. That’s how I’ve been struggling lately: a struggle against myself, my indecisiveness.

I want to live the present, but let’s be realistic and stop following these too cheesy online posts. Yes, appreciate what is now, but do take note of the future; what’s next? Don’t obsess over it, but don’t hide from it either. 

So I started thinking about it, about my vision. What do I wanna accomplish? Who do I want to be remembered as? It’s way more complex than answering the ‘What do you wanna do when you grow up?’ question. If I tell myself that I want to become a writer or a psychologist, and make this my vision… no, it’s not enough.

Such things are only a label to your work, and I also read that we shouldn’t be defined by our occupation, which I totally agree with, although that’s how we were made to think. A ‘writer’ or a ‘psychologist’ is just an occupation, but we, as human beings, do more than work. We love, we have fun, we spend. And somehow, many things out of work can be done to reinforce a vision.

A common vision would be to make the world a better place, but it has to be more specific. How would you do it? In what field? You can do some much with your two hands and it might not seem like a lot, but it will make a difference, and it will make you complete. 

I’m still in the process of crafting my vision, but here’s what I got so far:

The more I get into my Psychology major in university, the more I feel that I should pursue it further. I’ve slowly found myself to be more drawn to becoming a mental health counselor, and more specifically in the area of parenting and child development. That’s my career choice for now.

To expand it into a vision would be to further explore my attraction to this particular field. Why this specification? Well, frankly, I feel that I have been fighting social stigmas all my life and in all areas. And I want my child(ren) to live in a world where these stigmas are less prominent (being realistic here but still hopeful). I also realised that I wasn’t raised properly, and I don’t mean in the sense of being unloved, beaten or other obvious bad parenting practices, but in the more subtle areas of emotion and psychology. Giving a child its emotional space is something many (especially Asian) parents neglect… which follows another social stigma. You see where I’m going right?

In addition, my vision also consists of a personal battle I want to overcome: I want to grow emotionally, I want to become stronger emotionally… without having to build up psychological walls. I am sick of being ashamed of crying or showing any extreme emotion. Enough of pride. I want to let it all go.

I want to be like the counselors (who have been amazing trainers, tutors and now, in third year, lecturers) I have met on campus: they are soft-spoken and shy, but when they tell you about their experiences with mental health, you come to the realisation that they are much stronger than you could ever imagine. Vulnerability can be strength too. Emotions are what makes us human… and what makes us connect with one another. It’s powerful, thus scary (for me), but in the end it’s a power to be embraced and used for the greater good.

Personally, I think that visions should be abstract, so that it can touch all aspects of life and make you walk forward in every way, whether you’re working or playing.

So what’s yours? Have you thought of a vision yet?

An Evil Nymph.

I would like to say a special thank you to all my readers out there, whether you have been with me on this journey from my 2011 or you are new here! Keep reading. 🙂 Much love!