I feel guilty when I have fun sometimes

Have you ever felt guilty about having fun? Lately, I haven’t been able to have fun because after I’ve relaxing, I feel guilty!

The truth: It’s important to live life right now and not always wait for “someday” to start living. 

I’m trying to convince myself this all the time but I honestly don’t always convince myself. I like to look at the next step ahead and work towards getting there. I bet lots of you goal-driven busybees are like that too!  It’s good to be motivated to work, to create, to be out and about. Don’t reject the ambitious streak in you because it’s taking you places and it’s taking you where you want to go.

Just watch that you’re not telling yourself “someday”, “later”, or “down the road” too often. Why?

  1. There will always excuses . You’ll _____ when you’re less busy with school during the break, but oh you want to spend time going out during your break, maybe after you graduate but your job keeps you busy, and oh you’re too busy with your kids.
  2. If you’re in for a lot of schooling e.g. medicine, it gets busier as you go along not easier. You think you’re too busy now. It gets busier in medical school, even busier residency, much busier when you’re an attending…
  3. Later may never come. During December of 1st year, one of my best friends was diagnosed with a tumour and the possibility of such a sweet young person dying young drastically changed my outlook on life. We’re young but we can die tomorrow. Cancers, diseases, accidents, and more can happen to any of us any time. This sounded dark but that’s the truth.
  4. You can’t rewind time. You can’t always make up for lost time in the future. Your grandpa’s birthday may seem low-priority if you only think about getting to your goal of becoming, say, an architect. But years later, you can’t go back in time if you think you should have spent more time with your grandfather.
  5. Are you taking care of your own health right now? 

You’ve been working hard and will continue to work hard. If you’re been working yourself to the bone, this is for you:

Right where you are in life, not just at some elusive point in the future, 

You deserve to be happy. 

You deserve to relax sometimes. 

Don’t feel guilty about taking an evening off to meet up with your old high school classmates. Focus on enjoying the company of your best friend the entire time you’re hanging out. Waiting for the perfect time to date is something I hear about often but there is no perfect time. As long as dating is something you want to do and feel ready to do, spending time building a relationship is not a waste of time.  Having hobbies outside of your career goal is totally fine. Painting, writing, cleaning your house if that’s what makes you happy, beading bracelets with your neighbor, –  things that don’t add value to your resume can still be valuable to you as a person. They may help you with your personal growth, or just nourish your soul.

So, say yes to new experiences. Say yes to broadening your social and professional network. Say yes to doing what you enjoy. Say yes to spending time with the people that are important to you. Say yes to  discovering more about the world and about the people around you and about yourself. Say yes to a morning hike, a music festival, a movie night, a volunteer opportunity because you’re genuinely interested and not to build your resume, to reconnecting with your cousin, to having a heart to heart with your mom, to writing a blog if that what you’ve always wanted to do.

You’ll be glad when you look back and see that you kept a balance in your life. You’l l be happy and achieved your coveted goal. And you’ll also be glad that you had an amazing time along the way.

As much you look forward to your next destination, enjoy the journey of life along the way.

Love,

Shanna

I’m going to meet Scott Young!!!

I am so excited that I’m going to meet someone I deeply admire! Scott Young is an author and blogger who writes about productivity and self-mastery. I’ve subscribed to his blog for quite some time now and now I’m going to meet him on my birthday. If you’re interested in learning how to learn and career development, check out Scott’s blog at http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/

Now if I could also meet Cal Newport, Leo B from ZenHabits, LadyKayMD, Andrea Tooley, Cassey Ho and … (this list goes on and on )

As my birthday is coming quickly around the corner, my friends have been asking me what I want and what I want to do to celebrate. I’ve often replied, “Nothing.” My ideal birthday doesn’t involve any gifts or fancy night out. I really don’t need any things. In fact, I believe that I need to live with less. Things don’t make me happy. Having more things can make me unhappy because things can become clutter and once I have things, I’ll want more things. Once I want things, the wanting never stops. So for my birthday, I don’t want material items or money being wasted. My ideal birthday would involve:

  • Spending time with those that I care about. Perhaps over a meal,  or casually chatting over snacks at home, or teasing each other and laughing and the laughter becoming white puffs  in the chilly autumn air, or doing laundry together with my mom. That’s what I like.
  • Spending time quietly to reflect on the last year of my life that has gone by. Perhaps while all cozy with a notebook and pen or while sweating it out on a nice long run in the early morning.
  • Time writing writing and writing
  • Relaxing because I know that all my studying and homework is already be (mostly) done
  • As much I love people, I feel like I haven’t had much time to myself nowadays. I’m thankful that I’m constantly surrounded by a bright, cheerful, caring, loyal and supportive crowd of family and friends but I need a break to stop and think about who I’ve been this past year and what kind of person I want to be to this world for the next year.

A preview of this upcoming week: (sorry for all the abbreviations.)

  • LEAP Launch Party and Orientation at the Arts Club Theatre on Granville Island tomorrow. I have to get to sleep after I’m done writing this!
  • Time with my favourite
  • Study time with my best friend (Best Friends Forever!! )
  • Lots and lots of studying and prepping for meetings etc
  • A light workout
  • Lunch with my Big
  • Physics quiz.
  • LEAP first session at BMO Theatre Centre, which means that I have to miss RD crew appreciation that evening. That’s too bad because I really want to see the crew. I could stop by after LEAP but that would be pretty late and I should probably go home instead.
  • Volunteering as a sighted guide for VocalEye AGM meeting downtown.
  • Math quiz
  • Research meeting at HVEM
  • One of those brutal 9-5 non-stop Fridays… sigh. But I love Chem lab so I’ll have something to look forward to.
  • Need to prep for REX meeting

Then it’ll be next weekend. I think this week is going to fly by.

Hope you all are going to amazing weekends!

Shanna

Molly Burke & Retinitis Pigmentosa

I was inspired to get involved with volunteering with individuals with vision loss when I heard Molly Burke speak in person at a Microsoft coding workshop. This Youtube video that she made is closest to the speech she made. I highly suggest you watch it to learn about growing up and living with vision loss.

Change of Perspective

I’ve been following Serena Bonneville on her blog “Change of Perspective” since she first started it in 2013. Some of her writing is hilarious while other writing is deeply reflective. She constantly refers to old movies. Most of all, her outlook on life is incredibly optimistic. Her personal strength and grateful attitude amazes and inspires me.

This was a quote from Serena that rung with me: “Regardless of how it ends, a life spent fighting cancer really sucks; but it makes life spent before the fight all the more meaningful. Every happy moment magnified, every grudge forgotten and the love, unconditional.”

Oh yeah… she was diagnosed with leukemia when she started her blog and is currently receiving chemotherapy treatment. Does that suddenly jolt you awake?

She’s only a year or two older than me. She used to play soccer, was elected a leader in her school community and did well in school. The closeness of all this strikes me. The more I read, the more I got to get a glimpse of what Serena was going through. My perspective had also changed. I keep reading now because the way she’s handling things so well yet also admitting weakness that her body is physically struggling is inspiring.

So I highly recommend you check out her blog breedingoptimism.blogspot.ca

Another inspiring blogger writes at http://kieranmcghie.blogspot.ca/   although Kieran hasn’t written a new post in a while. 

Here is the message that I hear from those who shared their stories online: we all should appreciate our happiness now and when hardships happen, fight with all we have.

“But when you’re sick, you fight through it all, because you have to; because when you reach the end, it won’t be a miracle, it will be a triumph.” Serena

Cute and funny video set to one of my favourite running songs: What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

Do you know of any other inspiring young fighters, not limited to cancer?  Comment below. 

 

Spam prevention powered by Akismet